A weekend in Amiens

Thursday 31st May 2007

I had a lovely bank holiday weekend with Caroline and her family in her hometown of Amiens. I spent much time at a big family gathering, meeting over 88 family members in one weekend (that's a lot of kissing and hand shaking) - which was great. Lots of food, lots of wine - my kind of gathering.
The rest of the time, I had a chance to look around Amiens, which is a really nice French town with a huge cathedral. There is a nice town centre with some lovely restaurants along the river. Oh, and the river has a statue of a man in it that students reguarly dress up in different clothes.

There is a rather special clock in the town centre, nick-named the Marie sans chemise. Paid for by Mayor Lewis Dewailly as a monument for art and industry, it was originally unveiled in 1896, dismantled after World War II and then reconstructed, and unveiled once more on New Years Eve 1999. It's fantastic.

Carolines parents' traditional French town house was beautiful. I've always liked houses with high ceilings. The staircase has a lovely warm wooden handly that curves smoothly and steeply up to the two floors above, and there was the lovely pattern in the front inner door...

Oh, and may I introduce you to Guillaume, who pretty much has this expression on his face all the time and just asks you "Quoi ça" every 30 seconds. He's lovely.