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Monday July 24, 2006
Amiens et les Muches
I am pleased to report that the air-conditioning in the car has now been
fixed so the journey home was quite pleasurable - probably more pleasurable
than being out of the car in fact. The pleasure was further increased
in that we did not have to drive to Boulogne for the ferry all in one
day.
Our stop-over turned out to be in Amiens, which is a lovely town, and
was complete serendipity since it was the only place we could find that
was available at the time we booked.
On Saturday evening we ate at the seemingly inappropriately named "Queue de Vache" on the Quai Bélu which has a lot of restaurants to choose from. George ate an uninteresting steak (the only one on the menu), and I had a delicious "souris d'agneau", which I discovered was a lamb shank - supposedly because it might look like a mouse when cooked (? - they must have big mice in France - that's all I'm saying).
On Sunday morning we visited the "Maison
de Jules Verne" - it is a quietly impressive house. Living there,
even I might be inspired to write exciting adventure stories and make
my fortune.
There were many great items on display, including models and puppets,
as well as memorabilia and early editions of his books.
We then walked back into the town, and along the river to see the Hortillonages.
These are allotment gardens surrounded by water which were developed on marshland during the Gallo-Roman period. There are numerous plots of land, criss-crossed by canals, the “rieux”, which are navigable by flat-bottomed boats known as “barques à cornets". The Hortillons (market gardeners) sell vegetables every week from the quai, and once a year, in June, they dress up in antique costumes and sell from their boats in a "water market". You can go on a tour in a barque but we passed on that due to the intense heat.
Amiens was serenely beautiful and the weather was glorious - and you cannot help but poignantly think of the notorious battles of the Sommes - and fail to imagine.....
After lunching at a riverside cafe, we sped on to our next destination: Naours.
The "muches", (hiding places), which apparently occur under
many towns in Picardie, are underground passages hollowed out of the limestone
by man. I can compare them to our own Chislehurst caves. These underground
passages can accommodate an entire village including the cattle. The Muches
at Naours are the largest, made up of about thirty galleries extending
over a total length of 2 km, including public areas, cattle-sheds, wells,
chimneys and even a chapel with three naves. The height of these galleries
varies between 1.60 m and 2 m. They were constructed to provide shelter
during the wars and invasions, as well as extracting building stone to
construct the village.
Of course you only visit a small part of the caves on the underground
tour [I have read a very mean-spirited review suggesting that the experience
is not as advertised but merely a tourist trap]; however I found it nonetheless
very interesting - despite the whole tour being commentated in French
of course (though a written guide was provided for us in English). It
is quite cold in the caves - a steady 9 degrees (warm for the villagers
in Winter) - which was a great relief from the current heatwave, but really
you need a cardi!
The tour ends with "a small museum dedicated to the old Picardy crafts"
- probably least said about this the better, but maybe fun for kids.
We ended by climbing Watchtower Hill, above the caves, to see two pivot
wooden mills. One was an oil mill, the other a flour mill.
Posted by Christina at 3:20 AM. Category: France
