Jottings from the Journals... Amiens

I'm in Amiens today.  Yet again, according to my journals, it is books that have brought me here.  However, the books are not the only reason, I'm also meeting up with friends for a very special celebration…

Friday, 1^st

… I've been reading Sebastian Faulks' novel Birdsong, which is set here in Amiens in 1910.  Later the plot moves to the trenches in the Great War and elsewhere in France and then to the 1970s in England.  What I'm keen to see are the river- and canal-side gardens that form the backdrop for a scene in Faulks' book.

Amiens is dissected by the river Somme and the attendant canal.  But the rivers Avre and Selle also flow through areas of the city.  The abundance of water in the town enabled the textile industry - dating back to the Middle Ages - to flourish here.  But it also enabled the hortillonages, the floating gardens, to develop.  These gardens have been here for around 700 years and are thought to have been created in the 12^th century, perhaps making them some of the oldest 'market gardens'.  Used originally to provide fresh vegetables for the local people, the gardens are now more of a tourist attraction.  But there are some hortillons, who hold up the long held traditions.  They sell their produce at the market on Saturdays and on Sundays can sometimes be found in traditional dress in their barques à cornet (a flat-bottomed open boat with one raised pointed end).

But it's not just Faulks and his book that is connected to this city.  Jules Gabriel Verne (February 8^th, 1828 - March 24^th, 1905) lived here for the latter part of his life.  Verne first visited Amiens in 1856 for the wedding of a close friend.  Lodging with the bride's family he became close to her sister and they married in January 1857.

Verne and his family did not return to Amiens until much later.  By that time his most well known books - Journey to the Centre of the Earth (1864), From the Earth to the Moon (1865), Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1869), and Around the World in Eighty Days (1872) - had all made him into a wealthy man.  He lived the latter part of his life here in

Amiens at 44 Boulevard Longueville.  He died here on March 24^th, 1905.  His final resting

place is the Cimetière de la Madeleine d'Amiens on the northern side of town.  He is in very auspicious company too as the graveyard has scientists, local dignitaries, architects and war heroes within its walls.  The street on which Verne lived has since been renamed in his honour and his house has become a museum dedicated to his life and his work.