Amiens

After such a warm and sunny day I was surprised to hear it raining hard during the night. We woke to fresh blue skies and sunshine and had another delicious and huge breakfast. The owner of L’Histoire de L’Eclair, Annick, told us about the history of the house which is more than eight hundred years old! 

The owner of the house in the Middle Ages was a tailor, and he also rented out rooms. He rented out a room to a handsome foreigner who caught the eye of his two daughters. One of the girls had a fiancé, the local baker, who was jealous of the stranger, so one night he followed him. The stranger went down to the canal (which in those days went under the house) and mysteriously stayed out all night. The two sisters went into the stranger’s room one night while he was gone and found that he had left his trousers behind. The trousers had no opening at the front and a hole at the back; this led them to believe that he was the Devil and the hole at the back was for his tail! The family kept the discovery of the trousers quiet because they did not want their fellow townsfolk to think that they were in league with the Devil, so they tried to burn them. But instead their house was set ablaze (presumably by the vengeful Devil.) The baker fiancé kindly sold pastries to raise money for the restoration of the house, the stranger / Devil never returned, and they all lived happily ever after. Outside the house, there is a carving on the wall deputing the two girls holding the Devil’s trousers! 

Annick then took us down to see the cellars of the house which they are carefully restoring; the intricate brickwork is absolutely beautiful. 

Our next destination was south to the Thiepval Memorial to the missing of the Somme, near Amiens. We looked  around the informative small museum, and then we walked the short distance to the memorial. It was very quiet and this made it particularly moving. Onwards to Amiens where I had booked a boat tour of the Hortillonages, which we first visited in 2018 with Heather and Ewan, and where a scene near the beginning of Birdsong by Sebastian Faulkes is set. We arrived at the place where the boat tours depart only to find out that I had somehow booked with a different company! I hadn’t realised that there was more than one company! Luckily this was only five minutes along the road and we got there in time. It turned out to be a one boat company run by the very pleasant and handsome Rémi. He is taking delivery of another boat next week (and presumably will be employing someone to drive it.) The tour was an hour long, fifteen minutes longer than the other company, and it was excellent. We were pleased to get the boat to ourselves (plus Rémi!) because I reckon that there was room for eight. It was so peaceful and quiet; we saw moorhens and ducks and coots, and we saw a jay fly past us. Davie and Chanel, who had watched the Birdsong mini series in preparation, thought the boat trip was very enjoyable. 

We checked into the Mercure hotel which is very central, in fact we have a splendid view of Amiens Cathedral from our balconies, and had a brief rest before separately going for a wander. James and I looked round the Cathedral which is huge (twice as big inside as Notre Dame de Paris) and then had a pre-dinner drink in a nearby pub with Davie and Chanel. 

Our dinner, to which Davie and Chanel insisted on treating us, was at Restaurant Le Quai (recommended by Rémi), and it was splendid. What a lovely final evening of our holiday.