Day 14; the discovery of Sainte Rita
Day 14; half day cycling, half day washing, 58 km to Amiens
The distance between the cathedrals in Picardy is too short to make a full bicycle day. In a radius of 60 km you can find cathedrals in Beauvais, Amiens, St Quentin, Laon, Soisson and Noyon. And not the least of cathedrals! Amiens used to be extremely rich due to the trade in cloth. The cloth went to Troyes and from there to Italy.
Today after a good breakfast in the bit run down hotel we cycled without too many problems to Amiens, the wind in front was still there but you can get used to it apparently.
In Amiens the same procedure; looking at the cathedral and getting an stamp for Ben, a good lunch with al local specialty the ficelle (roll of pancake with ham, cheese, ham and lots of cream). But then we went for something completely different and intensely satisfying; we went to a laverie, or: a beautiful laundrette. Our “evening” clothes were getting quite smelly over the last few days. By sitting in our raincoats in the laundrette for just 1 hour we managed to get the maximum amount of clean clothes out of the machine.
Amiens cathedral is triple A. It has vaults at 41m (Beauvais 47m). The Amiens builders went up to the limits of their game, where the Beauvais builders went over these limits. Amiens did have to do some reinforcements later on, but if you are not informed you would not notice this. Impressive are the memorials regarding the battle of the Somme and Amiens 1916-18 in the cathedral. Also, we got acquainted to Sainte Rita, the Saint of Hopeless Cases. Wish we knew her before!
The B@B was just out of the centre and had a good garage for the tandem.
In the evening we quickly agreed that a galette would be nice. And so we had galette and crepes with a cup of cidre. After dinner we walked through Amiens which is very lively and full of hipster places to be. A place to revisit!
