Amiens

Hotel room at Le Prieuré.

Amiens is about 75 miles to the northeast of Rouen on the Somme River and is the capital of the Picardie region ("the central Pennsylvania of France") - 7/21 regions for me and 11/21 for Lisa. Our train arrived about 7:30 and we walked from the station into the center city. It reminded us both of Cardiff quite a bit: wide pedestrian-only streets with lots of chain stores on either side. Our hotel, Le Prieuré, was just across the street from the cathedral and was absolutely charming. It used to be the priory connected with the cathedral. In fact, our room used to be the monks' chapel, which you can tell from the pictures with the rib vaults in the ceiling. The guy at reception was also very helpful, giving us a map of the city, showing us where the main restaurant area of the city was located, and explaining about boat tours on the Somme for the next afternoon. We took his advice and walked to the main restaurant area along the river and ate at a pretty good place, although it was extremely crowded which made the service slow and absent-minded. It seemed like a very local place and the waiter was very friendly, too. We didn't end up leaving till almost 11!

Street in Amiens.

We slept in the next morning (after our 18-hour day the day before!), went out for breakfast, passed through Amiens' Saturday farmers' market as well as through a square with an Occupy Wall Street encampment. The whole town had a rather British feel to it - lots of red brick architecture in a kind of Georgian or Federalist style. It was very different from the mix of 19th-century stone buildings, medieval wooden buildings, and modern stucco that we've seen in most other cities in France. We then headed back to the cathedral, the main tourist attraction in Amiens (unless you're into World War I battlefields - there are a lot of those in the vicinity, too, apparently).

Amiens cathedral.

For comparison with the other Gothic cathedrals we've seen, Notre Dame in Paris was built primarily between 1163 and the 1240s, Tours Cathedral was begun in 1170 (most of it was done by the end of the 13th century), Chartres Cathedral was mostly built between 1193 and 1250, Rouen Cathedral between 1202 and 1220, and Amiens Cathedral between 1220 and 1270. This means Amiens is the latest Gothic cathedral we've seen and this is important because it explains why it has the tallest nave of any completed Gothic church in France - 139 feet from floor to ceiling, so high it made me slightly vertiginous to look at it. See, each of these towns in northern France was trying to show off their wealth and importance by out-doing their rivals in making a bigger, taller, more impressive church. In being the last town to start a Gothic cathedral, Amiens knew it had to have a higher ceiling than everyone else. (By the way, Beauvais Cathedral, started in 1225, would have been taller - 159 feet, taller even than St. Peter's in Rome - but with the technology and skill available at the time, it couldn't be done without compromising the structural integrity of the whole building. Part of the church collapsed during construction in 1284, meaning only the choir was completed.)

Cathedral facade.

Cathedral interior.

Facade detail.

Anyway, Amiens Cathedral was certainly impressive. In addition to being unbelievably tall, most of the stained glass had been replaced with clear glass, making it fairly light inside. The pavement is all done in white and black tile and contains a labyrinth in the center of the nave. Lisa was the only one to try to walk it besides a six-year-old boy, perhaps because about fifteen percent of it was still covered by chairs. The cathedral once claimed to have the head of St. John the Baptist (stolen by French Crusaders from Constantinople following their capture of the city in 1204) but now only the reliquary is left. The exterior is also different from other churches, with a series of medallions at eye-level on the front facade with different biblical scenes on them. Sadly, the north portal (full of sculptures of the life of St. Firmin, whom Lisa studied for a project in grad school) was undergoing restoration, so we couldn't see the entire exterior of the church. It was also a very windy and chilly day, making it rather unpleasant to stand around outside looking at the facade! Still, it was a very interesting church and we spent an awful lot of time there.

Detail of the floor along with St. Firmin.

When we had our fill (and when we had a train to catch!), we bought some souvenirs from a store on the square in front of the cathedral, including a local Picard battu cake (we didn't like it very much!), got our bags from the hotel, picked up a sandwich-to-go for lunch and took the next train to Lille, another 75 miles to the northeast and the next stop on our whirlwind tour across northern France.

Lisa in the labyrinth.

Look at the height!