More Random Vignettes

On our way to The Somme, we stopped for a couple of hours at Peronne to do a supermarket shop and have lunch. Our mooring spot was on a wide part of the canal with big barges parked up on one side, mostly unloading sand or gravel and a few pleasure craft, including us on the other. Just as we were finishing lunch, C heard a noise, looked out of the window and said 'Oh my goodness' (or something like that) J went out into the cockpit and saw a very large barge pointing straight at our boat and only 50m away! It was doing a U-turn and we know they can turn on their own axis. It's very impressive, especially at such close range. There was a burly crewman on the bow of the barge; J put her arms up in the air and said, 'I surrender', he just smiled and waved, and indicated there was nothing to worry about. J could see that the pilot of the barge was a young woman. J waved and the pilot waved cheerily back. When the barge had completed its turn, the lady pilot was quite close. We both put our hands in the air and clapped. The very young and slender young lady (such a contrast with the barge) laughed, did a bit of a jig and gave us the thumbs up. It was a lovely moment. Unfortunately, neither of us was quick enough to capture any of it on camera. However, the photo below illustrates the difference between an empty barge and a full one. It was an empty barge that was doing the u-turn by us: very intimidating even though you are pretty sure all is ok.


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We went for a bike ride before a lunch stop at Chipilly, a little village on the Somme. There are two Commonwealth War Cemeteries from the First World War. We cycled to both of them. One on one side of the canal in Chipilly, one on the other in the neighbouring village of Cerisy, only about 2km apart from each other. The first one had many headstones for soldiers from the UK, Australia and Canada. Nearby, there is a wonderful sculpture acknowledging the huge contribution horses made in the First World War.


The second cemetery had a huge number of graves for unknown soldiers, including one from NZ . In the photo you can just read that the headstone is for “ A soldier of the Great War from a New Zealand Regiment”. All very sobering.


The large cross at the entry of the cemetry had a sword as an integral part of the cross. J thought it completely inappropriate that a symbol of war was superimposed onto a symbol of christianity.


Both of these cemeteries had a section for French soldiers and an adjacent section for Commonwealth soldiers. The photo below is of the second cemetery we visited. You might think there are a lot of headstones and yes, there are a few hundred. However we have visited many other similar cemeteries for WW1 soldiers that would make these two seem very small indeed.



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The cathedral at Amiens (yet another Notre Dame) is the largest gothic building in the world – apparently big enough to fit two of its Parisian namesake inside. It is also in the process of restoration and the parts that have been cleaned up are drop-dead beautiful. There are 4000 sculpted figues on the outside of the cathedral and thousands more – in stone and in wood – on the inside. It has the highest nave in the world. The whole building really is quite stunning, as you can see from the photo above taken from the front of the church in daytime.


At night, as in many of the cities in France the square in front of the cathedral is the location for a sound and light show. The one in Amiens uses lights and projectors to show what recent restoration work on the cathedral suggests about how it looked when it was first completed. The transformation is astonishing – both in terms of the cathedral itself and in terms of the quality of the projection. The detail, even at very close range, is astonishing.


We may have to go back and watch it all over again – not just because it was impressive but also because in order to take the photos front on, we ended up beside an audio post, which translated the commentary into Dutch. Not being able to understand Dutch nor to hear the French, which C would understand, we really missed out on all the information. Next time, we'll sit next to the English translation post and not have to worry at all about taking photos.

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Often when we arrive in a town and visit the Tourist Information Office, we find that we have just missed (or will miss) some special event or festival that we would have enjoyed being part of. In Amiens, we arived to find that we were here at exactly the right moment for their annual balloon festival. It takes place over the course of the weekend with two flights a day – at 7am and 7pm (weather permitting) – as well as a nightglow. We've been too lazy to take our bikes to the actual take-off zone (not because of the distance we'd need to travel but because the height of the quay here makes it difficult to get the bikes off the boat) but it has been a joy to watch the balloons wafting over the city – about a dozen of them each time.


A little footnote – a balloon of the big, passenger-carrying kind is called a montgolfière in French after the Montgolfière brothers, who are credited with its invention.