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April 1998

Amiens

David Aaronson
2005-09-23 22:34:11

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quite remember.

The outside of the cathedral is similarly ornate. This close up of the main door shows some of the carvings which cover the entire exterior of the building. Inside, Amiens has one more interesting historical piece. The floor in the center of the cathedral is covered in an elaborate maze made of black and white tiles and is known simply as the Labyrinth. Back in the middle ages, traveling to Jerusalem and other holy sites wasn't as easy as nowadays, not to mention it was rather dangerous at the time - so the Labyrinth was sort of a pilgrimage for the non-travelling types. Walking along it while reciting various prayers was supposedly the equivalent of actually going to Jerusalem, except that instead of being drafted into a Crusade, you could remain comfortably close to home and freeze to death.

After our visit to the cathedral we stopped at a random bakery on the way back to the car. We didn't know the names of most of what they had so we just pointed at things, and Melanie had a custardy flan-like tart thing, while I had a Vosgien (?) which was a little green cake with blueberries in it. Yum. I only mention this since I thought I should say something else about Amiens, and I hadn't yet included the obligatory french bakery scene. We left Amiens and spent the next hour taking every possible wrong road out of the city, before we finally vanquished the unintelligible road sign system and escaped in the correct direction. We continued winding our way north on little roads, eventually reaching the Belgian border. Just before we reached the border, we spotted our first genuine working windmill. Yay.

It was starting to get dark when we crossed into Belgium so we started using the major autoroutes. We saw several more windmills, and oddly enough, hot-air balloons as well. We passed through Ieper or Ypres if you prefer, which is a rather somber town surrounded by cemeteries commemorating the various sub-battles of World War II which took place in the vicinity. We arrived in Brugge, which is considerably more festive, about an hour later. Armed with several maps, it still took three trips through the city to find the hotel. For one thing, all the roads are one-way and there's no such thing as a straight road in Brugge. Furthermore, the hotel was largely hidden, and (alas) the parking garage was behind it. Since we still didn't know how to put the car in reverse, we had to make the circuit again.

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