Amiens, France

Amiens is a city and commune (roughly equivalent to incorporated municipalities/cities in the United States & Canada) in the north of France, 45 miles north of Paris and 40 miles from the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

Amiens is the capital of the Provence of Picardie. Amiens, with a land area of 30 square miles, is best accessed by rental car to better see all the city has to offer. The Somme River runs through Amiens and the province of Picardy, northern France. The name Somme comes from a Celtic word meaning tranquility. Amiens is known for the hortillonnages - gardens on small islands in the marshland along the 150 mile long Somme River, surrounded by a grid network of man-made canals.

Amiens is a picturesque city full of history. Amiens Cathedral (a World Heritage Site) is the tallest of the large ‘classic’ Gothic churches of the 13th century, and is the largest of its kind in France. The Notre Dame d’Amiens is a beautiful classical gothic cathedral. “Amiens, the cathedral in color” from the beautiful medieval stained glass windows, is spectacular.

This cathedral is larger than the Notre Dame d’Paris. Be sure to visit the crypt, located under the alter, for a trip into the past. The cathedral is open year round. The city of Amiens was an instrumental location in both the first and second world wars.

The Battle of Amiens was the opening phase of the Hundred Days Offensive in World War I, and during WW2, on February 18th, 1944, Nazi occupied Amiens was the site of Operation Jericho, a British operation which freed 258 people by bombing Amiens prison.

Jules Verne, well known writer of the novels Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864), Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea (1870), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1873), was a member of the city council of Amiens from 1888 until his death in 1905. He is buried in Amiens’ Madeleine Cemetery.

Amiens was also the setting for much of Sebastian Faulks wartime novel Birdsong. For those of you looking for more modern aspects of the city, Amiens is home to Amiens SC, a football team in Ligue 2, the second-highest league in French football.
Amiens is also a setting in the video game “Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem”.