Amiens – Day 12

Another early start to the day. After breakfast and checking out of the hotel I headed back to Gare du Nord to catch a train to Amiens for the start of my battlefields tour.

After getting my Eurail ticket validated I waited under the departure board to see what platform the train would depart from.

I hopped on board the train and made myself comfortable for the 2 hour train ride to Amiens. Here I was to be met by Colin Gillard from www.anzac-tours.com at what I thought would be around 12.30pm. Problem was that it was in fact going to be 1.30pm which as you can appreciate had me quite concerned by 1.15pm. Not having Colin’s details with me I was lucky that an SMS back home was able to have someone contact Colin and assure me that he was on his way. Phew!

I jumped aboard Colin’s tour bus with two other Aussies and we headed for the first stop on our tour.

The first stop was the town of Albert to look at the Cathedral and the famous Madonna on the spire.

We then headed to Theipval which is the site of the largest war memorial in the world. Since I was last here they have build a really nice visitors centre that has plenty of interesting information, including a good overview of the whole of World War I.

From Theipval we then headed to Poziers.

Australian 1st Division Memorial

What is left of the German blockhouse known as Gibraltar.

Australian 1st Division Memorial with Theipval in the distance.

Mouquet Farm memorial

Looking back from the Windmill site towards Poziers

Windmill memroial

British tank memorial

Windmill site

 

My hotel suite in Peronne.

Paris – Day 11

After a ‘French breakfast’ I hit the road looking to squeeze as much as I can in my last day in Paris.

My first stop was Cite, which is the island in the Centre of Paris. Here I wanted to firstly see Sainte Chapelle.

This is probably my favourite place in Paris being something of a hidden jewel of the city. The Chapelle is composed of two levels with the top level supporting a magnificent set of stained glass windows.

From here it is only a short walk to Notre Dame.

The whole area was very full of tourists and luckily having been here before I didn’t feel the burning compulsion to see it all again. To give you an idea, the line to go up the towers of Notre Dame was easily 150 or more metres, which would mean about a 2 hour or so wait to even get inside!

I crossed over the Seine and headed for the Parthenon.

On the way I passed the Sorbonne.

I also took the time to explore the crypt.

 

From here I strolled through the Paris streets to St Sulpice.

Unfortunately, given that it was Sunday they were conducting a service in St Suplice and it is not good form to walk around during the ceremony. I stayed a while to soak up the atmosphere and then decided to head to the Invalides area of Paris. I caught the Metro from the same station that I used many many times on my first visit to Paris.

 

 

The first stop was the Dome Church and the tomb to Napoleon.

From here I headed to probably my next favourite place in Paris, the museum of the Plans and Reliefs. Unfortunately this museum is kept pretty dark which is why many of the photos didn’t really turn out. The reason for this is that the museum houses a huge collection of dioramas showing different forts all over France. This allowed military planners to work out the best course to defence. Again, I reckon another hidden treasure of Paris and well worth a visit.

A few floors down from the Plans and Reliefs museum is the army museum containing everything from Napoleonic to contemporary conflicts. Since I was last here they have major major improvements to the museum making it very worthwhile and interesting for all. I was most impressed.

Picture of Checkpoint Charlie.

 

After the army museum I headed to the church of Invalides,

Across the courtyard

The final stop for the day was to be Sacre Coeur in Montmartre.

Being a Sunday you can see that the place was chock o block with people. It also didn’t help that they were also having some sort of fair as well. Given that I was become weary I decided that it would best to head back to hotel and grab some sleep given I had to catch an early train to Amiens for my battlefield tour in the morning.

The hotel had actually shifted me to another room (with my consent) however I wish they hadn’t. It was tiny and the wireless Internet didn’t work, which didn’t amuse me at all. I could put up with it for one night but it isn’t very pleasant having to shower with the wash basin digging into you kidneys and the toilet bowl rubbing on your knee.