The entire day on Thursday was spent in Amiens. The French partners and our girls, along with Madama and two teachers began with a boat tour of Les hortillonnages in Amiens. These are waterways created by the Romans on what was originally marshland. In fact, it is now an area of small islands of land surrounded by shallow waterways that you can tour in shallow boats. We divided into three boats and we saw some beautiful natural scenery.
After the boat tour, the students had some free time for shopping in Amiens. We ate a picnic lunch at a gazebo in a park and then we met at the cathedral of Amiens. It is a very impressive gothic structure that experienced some damage in the two World Wars, but it has been well restored. We also got to see the relic that some believe is the head of John the Baptist! There are 7 churches that claim to have the relic of his head and they can't all be right, but it was an interesting thing to see. We ended our day with a tour of Jules Verne's house (he was from Amiens).
The Hortillonages: They were beautiful, but it was very cold and too green! However, we did see baby ducks and baby loons, who were very cute.
ReplyDeleteThe cathedral was beautiful and huge, and it is cool to try and guess which parts of the cathedrals are oldest.
The coolest part of the day for me was the Jules Verne house because I am reading Tour du Monde en 80 Jours. I liked seeing the recreation of Verne's boat St. Michel 3 (He had three boats, all named St. Michel) and his office. I am amazed by how much research he had to do -- he rarely traveled, and yet most of his books are concerned with travel! He had a huge collection of encyclopedias that he referred to constantly. I also liked seeing the huge world map he had on the floor, and seeing the way he had scratched out paths and draen new ones as he revised his books showed me a side of the revision process I haven't experienced. I was extremely impressed by this museum.
More places I know! I love the hortillonages and toured them 3 times while I was living in Poix. The Cathedral is the most beautiful I've seen (and I've seen a lot) and it's remarkable that it wasn't damaged by the revolutionaries.
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