Page 192 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - France

1 "'= The west front
AMIENS unequal height.
towers are of

CATHEDRAL

EXPERIENCE Le Nord and Picardy Sun pm ∑ amiens-cathedrale.fr
! D2 ⌂ 30 pl Notre-Dame # Cathedral: 8:30am–6:30pm daily
(to 5:30pm Oct–Mar:); towers: Mon, Wed–Sat &
Work on France’s largest cathedral started around 1220.
It was built to house the head of St John the Baptist,
brought back from the Crusades in 1206 and is still
displayed here. Within 50 years, the cathedral, a
masterpiece of Gothic architecture, was complete.
Restored in the 1850s by Viollet-le-Duc (p202), and having
miraculously survived two world wars, Amiens’s cathedral
is famous for its statues and reliefs, which include scenes
from the life of St Firmin and the Last Judgement, the
inspiration for John Ruskin’s The Bible of Amiens in 1884.
La Cathédrale en Couleurs, a sound-and-light show, re-
creates the original colours of the statuary around the
west door, during the summer and at Christmas.

The King’s Gallery, a
row of 22 colossal
statues representing
the kings of France.

St Firmin Portal is
decorated with
scenes from the life
of St Firmin, first
bishop of Amiens.

WHAT ELSE TO SEE
IN AMIENS
The hub of Amiens, the capital
of Picardy, is the picturesque The calendar
St-Leu quarter, a pedestrianized shows signs from
area of low houses and flower- the zodiac and
their corres­
lined canals with waterside ponding monthly
restaurants and artisans’ shops. labours.
Further east are the colourful
Les Hortillonnages, a patchwork
of marshland market gardens,
once tended by farmers using
punts that now ferry visitors
around the protected natural
site. The Musée de Picardie has
many fine sculptures and paint-
ings. Maison de Jules Verne cele- A cutaway
brates the famous author, who illustration of
lived here from 1882 to 1900. Amiens’s great
Gothic cathedral
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