Swallows and Amazons, The Wind in the Willows – every literary image of messing about in boats in the most rustic style imaginable came to me as we gently motored along the tree-lined waterways and floating gardens of Amiens.
As if on cue, a kingfisher darted across the water, adding a flash of blue to the grey November sky and golden leaves that were still clinging to the trees. We were in the Hortillonnages, the intricate patchwork of channels, islands, streams, floating gardens and even art installations that turn the River Somme into a magical watery world.
Using a quiet electric engine, Pascal Goujon (or Paco, as he’s usually known) took us through this marshy mosaic of 300 hectares where, for generations, the people of Amiens cultivated their market gardens on these islets.
While the current number of market gardeners is only a fraction of what it was a century ago, their seasonal produce still ends up every Saturday in the food stalls in Place Parmentier overlooking the Somme and, by extension, on the menus of many of the city’s restaurants.
It was yet another pleasant surprise about Amiens, the ancient capital of Picardie (now part of the Hauts-de-France region), which I’d always passed on the way to somewhere else but somehow never stopped. The lure of the nearby coast had always been too strong, particularly the two villages facing each other across the Baie de Somme, St-Valéry-sur-Somme and Le Crotoy.
But here within a two-hour drive from Calais’s Le Shuttle terminal was a buzzing university city with the largest Gothic cathedral in France, some excellent restaurants and museums, lively studenty bars, imaginative street art and, thanks to the network of waterways running through the city, some wonderfully quirky architecture.
Like many cities in northern France that had suffered heavy damage during the world wars of the 20th century, Amiens had to be reconstructed, which is why there’s a wealth of architecture that looks as if it’s been undisturbed for centuries.
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And until 29 December, Amiens hosts northern France’s largest Christmas market, which takes over the length of the…
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