Amiens Favorites

Favorite thing: Take a walk around the Cathedral and just reflect how awesome and breathtaking it is! The best and highest Cathedral in the world is right here in this city!! You can't miss it! There's also a really pretty garden/park around the back of the Cathedral. Check out more of my cathedral tips in the must see section.

Fondest memory: My favorite memories of Amiens are those when I went out my front door and walked, having no intention or thought as to where I wanted to go. I found the most interesting places that way! My absolute favorite memory though is the first day that I ventured out. It was the weekend that I arrived in Amiens and I decided to head out and see what there was. It was such a cloudy day and a little rainy; I started walking and found a pretty little church. It was big and ornamented with statues and for a moment I thought that maybe I'd found the Cathedral. (I had never seen one before so I had no idea the importance and grandeur of them!) I kept walking though, determining that it couldn't be it. I came upon the Cathedral a few minutes later and was just taken aback by how big and beautiful it was! I went inside and just in time too because it started to pour down rain. Inside it was big and damp and dark. I was the only person there, no tourists or guides. A gregorian chant was playing on a loudspeaker overhead. I just remember walking around and looking in all the nooks and crannies of the church. Really beautiful! If I had one thing to see in France I would go back there to that cathedral, to my cathedral.

Fondest memory: We chanced on Amiens, and as I walked through the streets, thinking of Amiens as it must have been in WW1 (I had read Sebastien Faulkes' 'Birdsong' earlier that summer) I suddenly arrived at the cathedral square. It was ten in the evening, and a huge crowd was gathered, all facing the cathedral. We didnt' know what was going on, so we joined them. Suddenly all the lights went out, and a voice boomed over loudspeakers...then the facade of the cathedral lit up in brilliant colours, and the disembodied voice took us through a history of the cathedral, and the discovery of fragments of colour when they were renovating, which lead to this computer aided reconstruction of the cathedral as it looked when it was first built. A magical half hour...pinpoint accuracy from the projectors, and a totally new perspective on these worthy buildings!

Favorite thing: visit the cathedral. It is one of the most important Gothic buildings in France and, as I said before, the largest. It was built whithin a relatively periode of time, so it has a very uniform style. Unfortunately, the tower were never completed. You can see more pictures in the travelogue.

Favorite thing: Take a walk around downtown. This clocktower is right in the heart of the walker-freindly centre.