Visiting Picardy
Amiens is a city of water: the Somme splits into channels here, and floating market gardens still cover three hundred hectares at the foot of the centre. Its cathedral is the largest in France, by a wide margin.
To the north west, the Somme ends in a bay of shifting sands where the tide comes in faster than a walker. To the south, Chantilly keeps a château, a forest and stables that have never stopped working.
You will love it if
- You are coming from Paris or London for two or three days, without a car
- Gothic building and old master painting genuinely interest you
- You like birds, tides and walking on a tidal flat
Look elsewhere if
- You want sun: it rains roughly one day in three all year
- You want swimming beaches: the bay is an estuary, not a resort
- You plan to visit the bay without checking the tide
The must-sees
The highlights
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1 Amiens Cathedral +13 recs
Twice the interior volume of Notre-Dame in Paris, with a vault forty-two metres up. The portal gets its original colours back after dark, by projection calibrated on traces of paint found on the stone.
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2 Chantilly Castle +26 recs
Its Condé museum holds the second collection of old master paintings in France after the Louvre. Its last owner's bequest forbids any loan or any movement of a work: what you see there will never be seen anywhere else.
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3 Marquenterre Park +11 recs
Two hundred and sixty hectares of dune and marsh on a migration corridor, with timber hides along a marked route. The spring and autumn passages are the richest, and binoculars can be hired at the entrance.
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4 The Hortillonnages of Amiens +2 recs
Three hundred hectares of market gardens between canals, cultivated since the Middle Ages and still worked. You visit by flat-bottomed punt, pushed with a pole, from April to October.
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5 Parc Astérix +18 recs
Opened in 1989 at Plailly, thirty minutes from Paris. Its wooden roller coasters are the signature, and midweek attendance outside French school holidays is nothing like a Saturday.
The classic mistake
Walking out into the Somme bay with no guide and no tide table. The flood comes in at the pace of a trotting horse across sandbanks that close behind you, and rescues are routine. Guided crossings leave from Saint-Valery-sur-Somme and Le Crotoy.
Our itineraries in Picardy
| Length | Itinerary | What you see |
|---|---|---|
| 1 day | Chantilly | Castle, Condé museum, great stables |
| Weekend (2 days) | Amiens › Saint-Valery-sur-Somme | Cathedral, hortillonnages, the bay |
| 4 days | Chantilly › Amiens › Somme bay › Laon | Painting, Gothic, birds, upper town |
The train covers the essentials: Chantilly is twenty-five minutes from Paris, Amiens an hour and ten, and a regional service carries on to the bay.
A car becomes useful for the bay nature reserve and for the coastal villages, which are poorly linked to each other. The bay's tourist railway does the rest in season.
When to visit Picardy
| Rating | Season | Weather | Crowds and prices |
|---|---|---|---|
| May, June and September | 16 to 23 °C, long days | Moderate, good prices | |
| April and October | 11 to 17 °C, bird passage | Quiet, the best birding season | |
| July and August | 20 to 26 °C, showers | Peak on the coast and at the park | |
| November to March | 3 to 9 °C, grey and damp | Quiet, many closures |
Our advice
For birds, aim for the second half of April or of September: those are the two migration peaks, and the Marquenterre hides then count dozens of species in a morning. In July the bay is beautiful but thin.
Getting to Picardy
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1 By train Simplest
Eurostar to Lille, then a regional train to Amiens in about an hour and twenty, with no need to cross Paris. Via Paris-Nord it is an hour and ten to Amiens and twenty-five minutes to Chantilly.
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2 By ferry Best value
Dover to Calais puts you ninety minutes from the Somme bay by the A16, and Newhaven to Dieppe lands you even closer. With a car aboard it is the cheapest way for a family.
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3 The 1916 front Worth planning
the Somme battlefields lie east of Amiens, half an hour away. The Commonwealth cemeteries and the Thiepval memorial are open, free and signposted, and many visitors come for those alone.
From Britain, the train to Amiens and a hire car locally for the bay days: that combination costs the least and avoids driving across the region twice.
Getting around Picardy
Amiens is entirely walkable, cathedral and hortillonnages included. On the coast, the bay's heritage railway links Le Crotoy and Saint-Valery in season, under steam on some days.
Worth knowing
Tide times govern everything in the bay: at low water the harbour at Saint-Valery is dry and boats stay in; at high water the sandbanks vanish. The tide table is posted everywhere, and the guides set their departures by it.
What to eat in Picardy
- Ficelle picarde: a pancake rolled round ham and mushrooms, covered in cream and baked. A winter dish invented in Amiens in the 1950s.
- Flamiche aux poireaux: a tart of leeks softened in cream, in thick shortcrust. Eaten warm, as a starter or a meal in itself.
- Gâteau battu: a tall, heavily buttered brioche baked in a fluted mould, traditionally beaten by hand for half an hour. On Sunday mornings the bakeries run out fast.
- Macaron d'Amiens: dense, almond and honey, with no shell and no filling, nothing like the Parisian kind. One house in town has made them since 1855.
- Salt marsh lamb: raised on meadows the tide covers, which salts the meat naturally. A recognised appellation for the Somme bay, in season in summer and autumn.
- Samphire: a plant of the mudflats, picked in summer, served in salad or pickled. Found on coastal markets and in local canneries.
- Bière de garde: brewed strong then cellared, a northern French tradition. Several breweries in the region open to visitors and sell on site.
The waterside market in Amiens is held on Saturday morning at the foot of the cathedral, with the growers from the hortillonnages. Kitchens in town close early: booking after nine in the evening is hard on a weekday.
Where to stay in Picardy
| Area | What it is for | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|
| Amiens, Saint-Leu quarter | Cathedral, canals, restaurants | All on foot, station ten minutes away |
| Saint-Valery-sur-Somme | The bay, guided crossings, ramparts | The prettiest on the coast, full in summer |
| Le Crotoy | Beach, seals, heritage railway | South-facing, the only sand beach on the bay |
| Chantilly | Castle, forest, racecourse | Twenty-five minutes from Paris, expensive at weekends |
| Laon | Upper town, cathedral, Ailette lake | The cheapest, in the east of the region |
Two nights covers most trips: one in Amiens, one on the bay. The region is small enough that a single base covers everything with a car.
For the bay, sleeping in Saint-Valery rather than Amiens changes the day: the guided crossings leave early, on the tide's timetable and not the trains'.
How much does a trip in Picardy cost?
| Style | Length | Budget per person |
|---|---|---|
| Budget (hostel, markets, walking and birding) | 3 days | 120 to 180 € |
| Comfortable (hotel, restaurants, castle and reserve) | 3 days | 300 to 450 € |
| High end (country house, well-known tables) | 3 days | 700 to 1,000 € |
- The cathedral: entry is free, and so is the colour projection on the portal, on summer evenings and over the Christmas period.
- The Chantilly combined ticket: castle, museum, park and stables on one admission. Bought separately the same set costs a good deal more.
- Bay crossings: guided, they cost the price of a meal and last three hours. Without a guide it is not a saving but a risk.
- The regional train: cheap from Paris, it makes a car unnecessary for Amiens and Chantilly, where parking is the hidden cost.
- Parc Astérix: a dated ticket bought in advance costs far less than the gate price, and a Wednesday outside French holidays empties the queues.
Traditions and way of life in Picardy
Jules Verne lived eighteen years in Amiens, served on its council and wrote most of his later work there. His house, with its stair tower and study, can be visited as he occupied it.
This was the Somme front in 1916, and the landscape still shows it: military cemeteries of several nations, mine craters, woods replanted over trench lines. The sites are open and free, and Thiepval carries the names of the seventy-two thousand missing.
Two useful habits. On the coast you do not approach seals hauled out at low tide: the wardens will move you back, and a disturbance can separate a pup from its mother. And in the bay you walk barefoot or in shoes you are willing to lose: the mud swallows boots.
