Thursday 4 October
We took a side trip to visit Picardy, Amiens and a day remembering the aussies who fought in the battle of the Somme during WW1. Amiens was a lovely city, we had enough time to visit the Notre Dame Cathedral of Amiens which is Frances largest Gothic cathedral, able to hold two cathedrals the size of Notre Dame de Paris – and very beautiful. Amongst all the great art, the other treasure is the real, dead head of St Jean the Baptiste behind glass… or so the legend goes. We also took a traditional boat to explore the “Hortillonnages” (the floating gardens) which cover 300 hectares of small islands and are criss-crossed by 65km of canals and the quarter of Saint-Leu, described as the little Venice of the North, full of small colourful houses and cafes and restaurants with outdoor terraces where we could enjoy the sunshine that was here (and not in Paris).

The following day we took a private tour of the aussie battlefields, and the numerous memorials and museums dedicated to the bravest of brave Australians who came from so far to fight for France and her allies. It was really moving. Very sad. But a wonderful day, I felt so proud of our nation, so proud of our contribution – I’m now quite ready to tell anybody who’ll listen that we won the war – it was us, a big contribution was because of us. If you’re interested in booking something similiar, Sylvestre from Terres de Memoire was brilliant.

From Amiens we headed north along the River Somme up to Boulogne sur Mer via Le Touquet where we stopped to watch the devastating defeat of the aussies in the quarter final of the rugby world cup. We were 3 Australians and a Quebecer in an English pub surrounded by jock english, shouting and hissing and singing that most annoying of songs, sweet chariot whatever… we walked out heads high, and crumpled into the car. What a disappointment…

Oh well, dinner in the michelin starred restaurant Le Matelote that night in Boulogne sur Mer revived our spirits, and then we watched the French send NZ on the same flight home as us Aussies. Not a bad end to a pretty bad day. Boulogne sur Mer was a nice port kind of town, we didn’t do it justice, just spending most of our waking time searching for somewhere to watch each and every one of the quarter finals, we’ll have to go back again at least to visit Nausicaa… Pictures are here.