Pēronne to Amiens.

July 26, 2024

There are fish in this canal!

The rain persists throughout the night and by morning it’s overcast but without any precipitation. Once we’ve packed, we go up to the cafe for coffee and to consume the croissants we ordered. They also sell joghurt, so we add that to some meusli.

Once breakfasted we’re directly onto the Canal of the Valley of the Somme.

Here, there’s a deep green ambience, partly due to the water colour and partly the shade of green of the foliage. The path leaves the canal from time to time, when the it reduces to a grassed walking trail.

Off the canal, we come to this interesting detail - a WW1 writer, Blaine Cendrars, I have not heard of.

A nearby house. Beautiful in its simplicity.

Awaiting the next lot of young school holiday campers.

The route continues through a heavily overcast morning, the coolness in the air making a pleasant change for cycling. We’re aware that access to important WW1 battlefields requires us to move away from the canal, but for the moment, we’re happy to view life along this stretch.

The small antique railway- closed for the day.

Optimistic fisher- mainly men, sit in quiet contemplation along the banks. No loud audio, just one, sometimes two blokes, staring into the canal, ever hopeful. Some wear camo and even have little tents in camouflage hues. Is this to disguise from the fish that they’re there, lurking, or maybe they do a spot of hunting too? We chance upon a young lad of about 13 with all his fishing gear and we have a chat about fishing in the canal. There are lots of fish he reports - and he’s caught quite a few. To prove his point, he hauls his phone out of his pocket and takes us through a line up of his catches. They’re quite sizeable. And numerous. And he says he eats them too. He even has a picture of an eel. The largest of his pics is a gigantic Carp, but I think he retains this as a visual future goal, rather than a past catch. We farewell him and wish him lots of future catches.

L’armēe Bleue. We’ve seen lots of these statues of soldiers in blue.

A chunky ēcluse house in Art Deco style.

Where there’s an upside, there’s sometimes a downside. Have yet to discover the significance of upside down signs. Fairies perhaps.

We wave to a boat on the canal with an Australian flag and the name Melbourne on the stern. When we are lunching at the lock at Sailly Lusette, this boat comes into the lock. In talking to the Aussie skipper I find out that they are going up to Corbie and then visiting the monument to Australian war dead. The John Monash Centre is also near Corbie.

There’s also a board with information about the War Poet Wilfred Owen, an extremely gifted writer and some say, the Keats of his day. Owen, whose span of writing years was tragically cut short a few days before Armistice in 1918, spent time on a hospital barge here, after being gassed. While here, he wrote ‘Hospital Barge’, a beautiful, but quite simple poem compared with some of his more complex, in style and ideas.

On into the afternoon, we cycle surrounded by water in the Somme Marais, and the river. There are a number of meanders that make us feel we’re travelling in circles at times.

We cycle into Corbie, which was an important military centre for both Germans and British and French- not all at the same time. It’s long lunch though, and the tourism office and the large church are both closed. Would introducing a lunch shift at the tourism office shatter cultural norms in France? Just a thought.
Corbie centre is being transformed by inflatable structures to celebrate the watching of the Olympic opening ceremony later tonight. The town also has several rather stately and impressive buildings and archways one of which we cycle through.

‘Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world whose margin fades For ever and forever when I move.’ Tennyson, ‘Ulysses’.

Near Corbie- the written info has faded, but it seems to be a cultural tribute by the Australian First Nation.

Tiring - the latter part of the afternoon slows down.

Then we’re entering the outskirts of Amiens. It’s quite different from Reims in that the emphasis is on gardens. And beautiful they are too. Lawns run down to the water, bordered by colourful flowers and shrubs. There are vegetable patches too. Many of the properties have bridges built to span the stream on our right. They are highly decorative and very individual. The prohibitive nature of the locked gate at the centre of the span is somehow mitigated by the creative and inventive styles.

They form part of the network of vegetable growing gardens on islands in the Somme waterways. “Les Hortillonnages.”

We stop and give our bikes a clean because we’re going into an apartment and are not quite sure what to expect. Once on our way again, our bike route takes us directly onto the Boulevard Alsace Lorraine, around the bend from which is our apartment. Entry via dropbox is simple and there, in the hallway directly outside the door is the bike stand. What could be simpler?

Carrefour Expres nearby provides dinner and we try to with limited success to see something of the Olympic opening ceremony. It’s been a good day, the journey is the winner on the day.

Today's ride: 65 km (40 miles)
Total: 1,379 km (856 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	6
Comment on this entry	Comment	0