Today started relatively early with me checking out of the Champagne et Nord and heading over to the train station. I got to Gare de l’Est and started to go through the line at the SCNF office before something struck me and I turned out to be right. I found a brochure and it turns out that trips to Amiens leave from Gare du Nord rather than the station I was at. Fortunately this walk was far less than 10 minutes and I was situated in the correct line at the correct station with reasonable ease. I booked passage to Amiens starting at 9:10am and arriving at 10:33am. So basically a second 1:20 minute ride in a row. That was fine by me. I was in first class thanks to the rail pass and the seat was comfortable. The car was obviously no smoking and the trip was fairly uneventful. When I arrived at Amiens I was able to find a map to give me a basic orientation but even with that I walked probably a bit more than I needed before I was able to make google maps figure out where I was trying go.
When I got to the hotel the guy at the desk told me that though I had reserved a non-smoking room he didn’t have any and to wait about half an hour till past noon. I did so and read for that spot before bothering him again. By this point he apparently found room 505 and I was upstairs in no time. In comparison to the 49 steps of the Champagne the relative ease of the elevator was very nice. The room is gigantic by European standards with a full size bed and a regular hotel sized bathroom. This will likely be the highlight of my accommodations in France so I will hope to sleep well while I am here.
After quickly getting settled in I managed to make my way to Au Bureau which was a lunch and pizza place that was far more busy than it appeared from the outside. And people were actually eating inside. I had some difficulty finding a space but they stuffed me on the end of the bar and I managed to have 3 of a blonde beer that appeared to be Beglian (Leffe) and a 4 cheese pizza (4 fromages) which was served European style which meant that it was not sliced to eat and I had to eat it with fork and knife. Again I saw people eating hamburgers in the roll with fork and knife and found it amusing. It looked as awkward as eating the pizza that way was.
After lunch I went straight to the Notre Dame Cathedral Amiens. I walked around it one time and then went in and did the full circuit of the building. Again I only took pictures from the outside though the monument to the American soldiers who defended Amiens in 1918 almost made me take a picture inside. I did not however. The upper reaches of the ceiling are about 135 feet or so and the cathedral is as large as they come. It obviously has seen some better days but I do believe it is still in active catholic use based on the seats inside and all the visible cues I found. In any event it is obviously very old and had to have taken what was equivalently a fortune to build as did every old building built in the name of God. Sometimes it is more awe inspiring that people could go through this trouble than is the motivation behind it. In any event it was definitely worth the visit and I took my time through it.
After finishing the cathedral I walked around town for an hour or two before heading back to the hotel to rest up for a bit.
After probably sneaking a nap for about an hour and a half I decided I should get some food. The prospect of going for a long walk was not great in my mind so I instead chose to just try the hotel restaurant as the Ibis here has one. It was partially a mistake. The menu was limited and I ended up having some tagliatelle carbonara. I forgot that carbonara was a cream sauce with ham in it. At least that is what it was here. I don’t think it tasted bad but there was a large clump of pasta that had clung together during cooking so it was not really cooked at all. I didn’t eat that part. After having the pasta I decided on some vanilla and coffee ice cream. These were both really good with the coffee ice cream even having frozen coffee beans in it. We’ll see if it affects my sleep. I hope not. Tonight I opted on no alcohol and only 2 ice teas. This all will be charged to my room which is a good thing because I forgot to go to an ATM today. In any event the meal was on the mezza-mezza range and from there I went upstairs to prepare this and upload as many photos as I could, after which I was aiming for some sleep. Small note, can’t find a way to make the TV which is actually HD here turn on. Second small note, the location of this hotel is good to downtown but not great to the train station.
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