Day 28: Amiens to Wailly

September 6, 2024

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What a difference a year makes. A year ago we stayed in this very same hotel. We sort of knew that, but thought it was seven years ago. Last time, in the blog, we did a lot of ranting about how the place had no signage or identification. But look at the photo of the door, below - it has all kinds of marking. Either they read the blog and cleaned up their act, or we had heat stroke and were not in our right minds here last year.

Our route out of town was the same ride by the "hortillonages" that we had done a bit of yesterday. With it being morning, we were hoping to see even more birds than yesterday. We would have liked, for instance, a better shot of that Little Grebe. But no, all the birds were still asleep. We saw only one (crested) Grebe on the whole ride.

This Moorhen, though, was awake and walking on its lawn.

We always think French vegetable gardens are very neat, and this lettuce planting fit the bill.

There were a few ducks and geese to be seen, higher up the river.

If this is a Mallard, then it shows that Mallards can have quite some variation of color.

Pond with lilly pads, part of the Somme flooded area.

Swans doing strange poses out on the pond.

Suddenly the peace and beauty of the area is interrupted by the appearance of a huge pulp mill on the bank opposite.

But then the river returns to be much like before. In fact, in this stretch it felt very wilderness-like and remote.

We had been cruising along ok, but I think I was a little glum, mainly because it was about 15 degrees and I was chilly. I was mainly thinking about how best to hunker down in the clothes I had on.

Things began to change as we entered Corbie. First of all it had a very nice square, with a city hall that looked like a castle.

But next we spotted a market. Any market is fun, but at first this one seemed to have only clothes and dry goods.

But wait, at the far end, there was the real, food section. Best of all there was a man making cous cous and tagine. Even better, he (and his son) seemed to be authentically from north Africa, like probably Algeria.

Think about being cold and hungry - and then this! The man pointed out that his ingredients were top quality - freshly picked from the hortillonages. Later we could certify, it was great!

While Dodie was buying the tagine, I wandered a couple of stalls down. Look at this one - about violin repair. The man told me the carved decorated violin in the second photo was 150 years old.

I think the origin of this was given as France. Later I found lots like this on reverb.com, from the States. They are worth about €500.

And oh, the classic rotisserie. But we already had tagine!

After the market experience, and especially the encounter with the tagine man, I forgot about being glum, and even cold. To be fair, it's warmer in a town, and I would get a chance to be chilly again, out on the trail.

We paused for a moment, before going on to look at the Abbey, and a lady approached me. She wanted to know if we were Australian. The reason is that lots of Australians come to this town, because I think there is a WWI Australian cemetery nearby. Anyway, she greeted us warmly, while telling (I think) that she had a daughter in Australia.

A few feet later, there was further evidence of the Australia/New Zealand influence in this town.

The abbey was just down the street, and it was fairly impressive, though closed.

We could easily believe that these divots in the abbey walls came from guns or shrapnel. Amiens was just behind the front line, this town must have been in the thick of it.

This type of road is usually very pleasant. It shows clear bike lanes, though the cars can travel in those lanes when no bikes are around.

Entering Albert, we could see the basilica tower in the distance. The tower is topped by a gold Mary, holding a Jesus. Here is a description I found in a post somewhere:

"The wonderful Basilica of Notre Dame de Brébiéres was built from 1885 to 1895 in neo byzantine style, and connects to the museum of Somme 1916.(see post). It was one of the high places of Marian worship in Picardy since the 11-12C. At the end of the 19C, the pilgrimage experienced a revival of fervor with all of Marian devotion. In 1895, at the time of its new inauguration, Pope Leo XIII conferred the honorary title of Minor Basilica on the new church. He specified in his papal bull his ambition for the basilica: “Albert would have to become the Lourdes of the North”. The bell tower-porch, 76 meters high, was surmounted by a dome carrying a golden statue of the Virgin which culminates in 82 meters. Albert’s basilica was completely destroyed during WWI"

The square in front of the basilica is nicely decorated with floral plantings, and also with some statues depicting a British piper and and Australian soldier.

There is a Somme museum attached to the basilica. This soldier statue stands nearby.

Inside the basilica we have the same sort of neo-Baroque mosaic that we saw at Lisieux. I think these basilicas are the most attractive religious buildings I have seen.

The coq is often seen atop steeples, and around. Not sure why.

Representions of God and Jesus are often seen in church ceilings, and God is just an older guy with a longer beard.

Columns around the basilica have stations of the cross representations. This then Is #VI

We left Albert, still following the pond dotted Somme valley.

Now we approached Thiepval. Thiepval took on special significance when we first heard "Letter to Marie", by Canadian folk singer Doug McArthur. The line "I'm hanging on the wire, in a place called Thiepval, in the valley of the Somme, on the other side of hell" is chilling as we ride by here.

The Thiepval British memorial. It's starting to look a bit weathered.

We have begun to see the upsetting fields of graves.

This is the Ulster tower memorial, near Thiepval. In "Letter to Marie", Doug McArthur wrote "Many are the messages, on the wire tonight. Many a savage Ulsterman has had his final fight".

Until Thiepval we felt we were looking really good in terms of the day's ride - with lots of time and battery to get to our chambre d'hote. We even messaged the host that we would arrive early. But as you see from the profile at the top of the page, a bit of a mountain lay in our way. We began to struggle, and to watch our remaining power and the clock. We had to use only minimal assist, and that certainly blew our early arrival. There was not even anything of much interest in this final bit, which I know because I have no photos for it.

We did arrive at the outskirts of Wailly, which is a completely unknown place for us. We found the street and we knew the house number of our stay, not that the hosts had thought to put the house number on their place! I rang the bell at a likely door, and after some time a man opened it. Yup, this was the place. My comment to him about house numbers went right over his head. But, the place is beautiful. There is also a fridge and microwave, coffee maker with lots of pods, etc., and a giant bathtub. So we are happily installed again. And tomorrow we may find out where or what Wailly really is!

Today's ride: 86 km (53 miles)
Total: 1,152 km (715 miles)

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