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).