In Amiens, day two

June 8, 2022

Her mission of mercy complete, Susan is heading back to Paris on the train this morning. We’d thought that with luck we’d all go out for a walk through town this morning before she leaves; but it’s raining, hard at times, so we hang around the apartment for a few hours chatting and listening to the pleasant sound of the rain splatting against the skylights and with Rachael and I feeling lucky that it’s a layover day and we don’t have to bike.

Finally about eleven it’s time for her to walk the kilometer to the train station. It’s still raining, no one has an umbrella, and no one can think of a good reason why two or three wet heads are better than one so she walks there alone. As she leaves she looks around the apartment and mutters something about not forgetting anything. Later in the day we’ll get a call from Paris - it’s Susan, wanting to find out if she left her charger and charging cable plugged into the wall next to my bicycle. Yep.

The rains stop about a half hour after Susan leaves town. It looks uncertain whether it will return today, but in any case we’ve made our plans. Neither of us is so eager to bike that we think it’s worth lugging the bikes down and up our three story staircase. Instead we’ll each go for a walk around town, separately. I draw up a walking route for Rachael, a loop through and around the Hortillannages; and soon afterward she’s out the door. She calls me about a half hour later to enthusiastically let me know there’s a garden show on down by the canal and I should consider coming over myself. It sounds like a plan, as soon as I’ve had my fill of the cathedral.

There’s a wealth to say and know about the cathedral, but a few details jump out from the extensive Wikipedia article. Built to completion between 1220 and 1270, its unusually fast construction gives the complete structure an harmonious high gothic style, rather than a mix of styles that often resulted when cathedrals were constructed over multiple centuries. It is the largest cathedral in France, large enough to hold two of the Notre Dame in Paris. The west facade which so amazes for the number, richness and quality of its many statues and gargoyles, was severely damaged during the French Revolution (as was the interior, which was largely gutted and converted into a storehouse for the Revolution). It was completely restored in the 1800’s by Eugene Violette-Le-Duc, the architect who knocked off a renovation of our little castle in Senlis in what must have been his spare time. Assigned to the restoration in 1849 to replace the first architect who was originally commissioned to the job and was criticized for his efforts, Violette-Le-Duc worked on the restoration almost continuously for the next 25 years.

An information panel describing the history of the cathedral’s construction.

A set of the many figures on the west facade (refer back to a photo of the complete facade in yesterday’s post). Susan noted that one of the figures (not one of these) was missing its head. I wonder if Violette-Le-Duc intentionally left one decapitated as a historical footprint of the Revolution?

The man on the left is slowly meandering his way to the center of the labyrinth. The flooring is from the 19th century restoration, and navigating the labyrinth is said to be a substitute for those unable to complete a pilgrimage to Santiago.

The rose window. Many of the original windows have of course been lost to time. The remaining windows were removed for protection during both world wars, and many were lost then in a warehouse fire.

In the chancel: the story of Saint Firmin.

From there I walked over to the Somme and to the grounds of rhe International Garden Festival, an annual event in its 13th year. This is the spot Rachael called me from and encouraged me to see, and the photos below are a culling from hers and mine. I received a warm greeting at the entrance as well as a map showing the layout of the park and locating the many artistic installations - and then proceeded to get thoroughly lost. The 300 hectare park covers a set of small islands joined by passerelles, and once you cross a bridge onto one of them you’re free to follow its paths to either a bridge to a different island, or more frequently to a dead end facing a canal and looking at across at a different path on a different piece of land.

At one point I came to one of these dead ends and was face to face with a man 20 feet away from me, speaking to me in French. We tried communicating and I was unsure if he was saying I didn’t belong here and should be on the other side. It wasn’t until a bit later that I realized he was outside the park on the bike path, and was likely just trying to find out how to get to where I was himself.

I wandered around for about an hour, continuously finding myself doubling back to a point that I was just at, and then finally managed to work my way back to the entrance. Not wanting to be late getting back to the apartment (I had the only key), I called it good even though I’m sure I covered only a small part of the park. I only managed to view seven or eight of the listed artworks.

And maybe that’s part of the point, leading you to get lost and experience something of the feeling of this unique environment and to imagine what it must have been like to be a gardener here in the Middle Ages.

One of the islets in the park, filled with curious artwork I’d like to have seen up close if I’d been able to find the access.

But at least I could look from across a narrow channel. Probably more interesting from here anyway.

From there I work my way back to the apartment, arriving there almost exactly when the phone rang. It’s Rachael, less than two minutes away and calling to let me know she’s coming and needs to be met at the door. So I just sit on a sill across the street and wait for her. A few pics and a video from the walk back:

The Somme, walking across a new Passerelle: L’Hortillonne, to provide an easier pedestrian access to the Hortillonnages.

Along the Promenade Nisso Pelossof, a ribbon waterway park on the south side of the Somme, across from the Hortillannages.

A common moorhen. I must have spent twenty minutes watching these silly birds ripping up algae hunting for morsels. “The species is omnivorous and opportunistic with a diet that consists of earthworms, crustaceans, mollusks, adult and larval insects (especially flies, mayflies, bugs, beetles, and butterflies), spiders, small fish, tadpoles, and occasionally birds eggs, algae, moss, aquatic plants, seeds, flowers, berries, and fruit.”

The Horloge Dewailly and Marie-sans-chemise (the ‘Naked Mary clock’), with the cathedral in the background.

The Belfroi d’Amiens stands just up the street from our apartment, close enough that we could hear its carillon from the skylight of our apartment.

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Suzanne GibsonThe walk in the park looks like a fantastic experience!
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2 years ago

Rachael AndersonIt was wonderful!
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2 years ago