{"id":4339,"date":"2015-10-17T16:41:34","date_gmt":"2015-10-17T16:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/?p=4339"},"modified":"2019-05-17T18:12:40","modified_gmt":"2019-05-17T08:12:40","slug":"amiens-france-2015","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/?p=4339","title":{"rendered":"Amiens, France. 2015 \ud83c\uddeb\ud83c\uddf7"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Travelled: 193 kilometres from Reims to Amiens, France<\/strong>
Visited: Villiers-Bretonniox and Amiens.<\/strong>
Stayed: Amiens municipal carpark, free no services, but a nice spot. N49.90001, E2.31071<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We depart our comfortable aire at Riems by late morning.  The weather still cold and misty, as we head north-west toward the valley of the Somme River.  We will avoid the tollway from now on, so I have set the GPS accordingly and we find ourselves on the D roads.  Before the A34 tollway the D1034 was the main highway between Riems, St Quentin and Amiens, there are some incredibly long straight stretches of bitumen running for 10-20 kilometres without a bend.  It is now however a series of round-a-bouts perhaps every 3-5 kilometres, one suspects to encourage use of the tollway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From St Quentin the village name become familiar, Albert, Corbie and Villers Bretonneux.  We passed through here two years ago visiting the Adelaide Cemetery and Australian Memorial. We cannot pass it by without paying our respects.  We drive past the Robinvale school and head out to the memorial on the road to Corbie.  There has been significant changes since 2013, the carpark has been relocated to the side of the memorial entrance and a lovely garden and grasslands planted.  This has opened up the view down the valley toward the Somme.  We have coffee and lunch in the carpark and chat to the some Australian visitors coming and going.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"There<\/a>
There has been significant changes at Villers Bretonneux since our last visit in 2013<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"X\"<\/a>
The Australian Memorial at Villers Bretonneux.  The cemetery below the memorial has the graves of soldiers from a number of commonwealth countries not just Australian.  Many are marked “An Australian Soldier known unto God”.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"X\"<\/a>
Not a great view from the memorial tower on the day, somewhere out in the mist the Somme winds its way through the valley beyond.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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It’s only another 20 kilometres to Amiens and we can see its towering Cathedral in the mist well before we reach the edge of town.  There are no official aires in Amiens, but there are a couple of spots where motorhome parking is tolerated, we find a nice spot next to a couple of other motorhomes in a small carpark across the gardens and sporting complex in the centre of Amiens.  It proved to be less than a 10 minute walk to the Cathedral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old city of Amiens stands on the southern banks of the Somme canal and river.  Adjacent the port of Amiens there are several smaller canals weaving in all directions.  The local tourist information indicates the Somme was a wide wetland that was reclaimed as the city expanded, the water being transferred to canals, then used to channel water to the various mills to provide power.  It’s a charming area to walk around with bridges in all directions, in fact many houses built along the canals have there own small bridge to access their homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Amiens Cathedral is apparently the largest in Europe, most impressive from the outside, it’s sculpture stonework finely detailed.  However we found it cold and dark inside it’s cavernous spaces.  On a sunny summer’s day, I am sure it would be more inviting.  There is little else of particular note about Amiens, other than it was market day during our visit and there’s nothing quiet as good as a French markets.  Lots of trash of course but lovely fresh fruit and vegetables, cheeses, fresh fish and meats and a lot more.  Lastly I should mention the tourist information centre in Amiens has very fast wifi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\"Amiens<\/a>
Amiens Cathedral in the background, as we head off on another adventure.  Just in case your wondering it another cold day.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Amiens<\/a>
Amiens Cathedral the largest in Europe so we are told. Massive but very cold.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Very<\/a>
Very ‘Game of Thrones’, this massive alter piece in the Cathedral in Amiens.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"The<\/a>
The finely carved decorations of the portal.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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The Somme Canal at the old port, we imagine it would be a lovely place on a warm summer’s evening.  No it’s not some idiot fishing, but an interesting bronze sculpture that someone has seen fit to put a blue t’shirt on.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Not good weather but a lovely market.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Michael and Pam<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Travelled: 193 kilometres from Reims to Amiens, FranceVisited: Villiers-Bretonniox and Amiens.Stayed: Amiens municipal carpark, free no services, but a nice spot. N49.90001, E2.31071 We depart our comfortable aire at Riems by late morning.  The weather still cold and misty, as we head north-west toward the valley of the Somme River.  We will avoid the tollway […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":4282,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[62],"class_list":{"0":"post-4339","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-towns","9":"czr-hentry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4339"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4339\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17818,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4339\/revisions\/17818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4282"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michaelandpamstravels.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}