June 11, 2018
Day 77: Abbeville to Corbie
Herve and Agnes at the Relais Vauban helped us a lot by cluing us in to the existence of bike routes basically all the way from Abbeville to Amiens to Arras and beyond. We knew about some of this, but did not know that they were a "thing". That is, that you can get pamphlets and mapbooks about them, and that they have more or less complete on the ground signage. We still went out and reflexively bought Michelin departmental maps for Pas-de-Calais and Nord, but probably we will not need them. Thanks Herve and Agnes!
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Although the bike route, called V30, does indeed run from Abbeville, it is in poor condition and does not improve, we found, until the town of l'Etoile. We variously tried the "big" road, D901, the smaller D3, and the V30 trail. None was perfect, but after l'Etoile the V30 trail settled down to being just fine - smooth gravel or hard surface, as promised, all the way to Amiens and beyond.
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For the time that we travelled on the D roads, we followed a familiar pattern - arrive at a town - identified by a standard red highway sign - and form a impression of what it was like, in terms of buildings or special features, like statues or special churches. Then the important part - does it have a bakery? a grocery? a bench or bus shelter? Usually the answer is no, and flash - we are by the end of town road sign, which is the town name with a line through it.
Our observations today were of towns that we just "ordinary". No extra fancy buildings, interesting but not extra fancy churches, a couple of bakeries here and there, and one Carrefour "Contact" super market, in Longpré-les-Corps-Saints. Hooray! 12 euros bought us lunch and supper.
As we approached Amiens, the rather workaday theme of this region was enhanced as we passed former workers' housing from industry that used to be along the Somme. As we drew nearer, there were plain apartment buildings, untilat last we could see the top of the magnificent Cathedral of Our Lady.
The Amiens cathedral is the largest church in France. It has a doubel but short tower design, much like Notre Dame in Paris, and also lots of carving and statues on the front. The cathedral was built over 50 years, in the 13th century, in Gothic style. There is a large open space in front, but square lined with businesses. The plain buildings standing around suggest destruction, in one war or the other. Inside, the building is suitably huge, with lots of side chapels and place to walk behind the altar. The church's major relic - the head of John the Baptist - can only be visited by appointment.
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The church featured many photos from the WWI period, when the main concern was protecting the artifacts and masterpieces from almost continual shelling. Screens and sandbags were put up.
The Australians played a big role in the Amiens area, where they are famous for the capture of Mont St Quentin in 1918. One photo showed an Australian military band at the church, another, many Australian soldiers in front.
As usual, we left one of us outside with the bikes in turn while the other went in to look at the church. We were both back in front, having an argument, actually, about which map best showed our route ahead, when two Canadians from Vancouver came up and wanted to talk about the Usual subjects. It was difficult to wrench away from the argument and try to be pleasant towards our visitors. They had been in town a day or so already, and were fully oriented to all the sights, so they wanted to guide us about where to go. We listened enough to confirm that the main things were the house of Jules Verne, the author, a "medieval" section behind the church, and the "Hortillonnages", and area of marsh and canals famous for gardening.
We set off first for Jules Verne, the author famous for Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873). Verne was born in Nantes, but lived here from 1882 to 1900. Amiens managed to baffle us, with many wide boulevards and intersections, all filled with construction and confusing directions of traffic flow. We had to stop often to look at the map, and that's when friendly locals would want to chat.
One local was Pierre Poessevara, whose last name comes from Brittany. Pierre had cycled New Orleans to Toronto. He happened to be wearing a joke tee shirt describing the "Canadian Triathlon', which is Running (from moose), Swimming (to escape Orca), and Climbing (escape grizzly). He was fun to talk to, because we appreciate his country and he knows ours.
We did at last find Jules Verne house, which lacked almost all signage. But how about this plaque? It's instructive because it shows the crazy French style of inexplicable hours of operation.
We did manage to sin around and get a look at walking streets of the city, and that little medieval area.
None of these attractions so far were exactly earth shaking, but the canal/garden area was indeed special. Clearly, a lot of gardening was going on, and little chalets that had been used as garden or boat sheds were now being lived in. One special feature was the little footbridges over the miniature canals, often made of decorative cast iron.
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6 years ago
6 years ago
It's a European coot, called à foulque here. À Poule d'eau has red feet and beak, but is very similar.
Cheers,
Keith
6 years ago
The rain, which had been spitting a bit all day, now became steady. So I buried the camera under a raincoat and we just cranked out the last 15 km to the town of Corbie.
Corbie has a very interesting town hall, and impressive church. We know about the church, because our hotel is right across the street. Best of all, next door - on this side of the street - is a bakery. Opens at 6:30 tomorrow.
You are spared images of Corbie (at least until tomorrow!) because of the rain. But I did take out the camera for just this one of the hotel:
Today's ride: 79 km (49 miles)
Total: 5,113 km (3,175 miles)
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