Soaring testament
Grand Gothic cathedral in Amiens outlived carnage of two World Wars
AMIENS, France — Views from hotel-room windows tend to be overrated. How much time, after all, does the average traveler spend gazing out the window of wherever he happens to be bunking down?
There are, however, exceptions to that rule — and not only when the panorama features dazzling snow-capped peaks or gleaming white-sand beaches.
Wife Marcia and I began our three mornings in Amiens with lingering looks — and gorgeous photographs — from our third-floor room at Hotel Mercure Amiens Cathedrale. We savored the view each night before tucking ourselves in.
That’s because we were gazing — from hardly more than a block away — at one of the world’s most magnificent Gothic cathedrals.
Some 75 miles north of Paris, little more than an hour by train or rental car, Amiens gets limited attention even for a day-trip spin from Paris. That’s very much the case compared to Normandy’s D-Day beaches, the Loire Valley’s chateaux or Chartres with its own Gothic
cathedral of great renown.
So why would a well-traveled American couple bunk down for three nights here, even given the cathedral’s allure? After all, dozens of these medieval masterpieces can be found across France and elsewhere in Europe.
The choice stemmed partly from my interest in military history and the city’s proximity to the battlefields of the Somme. This part of northern France saw prolonged and especially bloody fighting during World War I, whose outbreak will be widely commemorated when its centennial arrives in 2014.
We also chose Amiens because we remain intrigued by places previously unexplored, even after nearly a half-century of global gallivanting. Our one earlier stop in the Picardy region’s capital had been a rainy overnight stay 37 years ago as we headed elsewhere with friends. Back then, we’d done no more than duck inside the cathedral after dark, in lighting too dim for real appreciation.
This time we had the leisure to admire in detail France’s largest Gothic cathedral, dedicated like its counterpart in Paris to Notre Dame (Our Lady, the Virgin Mary). Work was begun in 1220 and completed (except for the towers) seven decades later — a fast-paced feat of devoted labor achieved by human muscle long before the advent of mechanized construction gear.
UNESCO, which declared Our Lady of Amiens Cathedral a World Heritage Site in 1981, praises “the coherence of its plan, the beauty of its three-tier interior elevation, and the particularly fine display of sculptures on the principal facade and in the south transept.”
MIDDLE AGES ODYSSEY
Savoring these splendors with only a scattering of other visitors, we felt at least partly transported to the Middle Ages. Such imagined time travel is much harder to conjure at Notre Dame in Paris, where swarms of 21st-century fellow tourists throng elbow to elbow rather like crowds packing into a major sports event.
In a sense, Gothic cathedrals played a role akin to today’s football and baseball stadiums as sources of civic pride built at huge public expense. They were also the skyscrapers of their era: The nave’s height at Amiens is 140 feet, something like a 14-story building.
It may be hard to fathom the cathedrals’ original spiritual transcendence in these secular times, when only 10 percent of Frenchmen regularly attend Roman Catholic Mass. But they were the dominant edifices in 13th-century cities, with their profusion of sculpture and stained glass conveying the Bible’s stories to mostly illiterate worshippers.
Among the outside features we most admired in Amiens was the cathedral’s central doorway framed by the Wise and Foolish Virgins along with the Apostles and the Prophets escorting a benign Christ. The tympanum above shows the Last Judgment ruled by a more fearsome God. Alas, we were too early in the year for the widely praised sound and light show that plays after dark during summer on the facade.
Inside, we were especially taken by the 14th-century rose window in the north transept, the black-and-white labyrinth pattern on the nave’s floor, the 110 ornate choir stalls carved in the 16th century, and the stunning series of eight carved and colored stone ensembles depicting the life and martyrdom of St. Firmin.
No other attraction in Amiens would merit a visit on its own. But it’s worth a look at the museum home of the writer Jules Verne, as well as the regional art and archaeology at the Picardy Museum. An unusual urban wrinkle is the Hortillonnages, vegetable gardens laced by narrow canals that can be navigated on guided boat tours.
We enjoyed a walk in the St. Leu quarter along the River Somme, where a lunchtime pizza with the thinnest of crusts earned our praise at one of the many waterfront cafes. Guitar music from a nearby busker added to the joie de vivre.
Our best Amiens meals came on consecutive evenings at Au Relais des Orfevres across the street from our hotel, where the staff’s skimpy English matched my stumble-bum French — a refreshingly exotic tinge, given how commonly America’s language is now spoken in much of Europe. Menu highlights included subtle ravioli with pesto, a flavorful lamb stew and a delectable lemon tart.
WORLD WAR I SITES
To satisfy my World War I curiosity, we spent most of a day on the road 20 miles or so northeast of Amiens, stopping at memorials and museums related to the Battle of the Somme.
On that battle’s most sanguinary day, July 1, 1916, British and Commonwealth forces suffered 57,470 casualties including 19,240 deaths. At that rate, the attackers would have suffered 7 million fatalities in the course of a single year — well more than all the fighting-age men left in the British Isles.
The United States entered the Great War (as it was then called) in 1917 and fought mostly elsewhere than on the Somme. But American visitors here still can expect to be overwhelmed by the sense of grievous human loss.
At Albert, nearer to the war’s front lines than Amiens, the Museum Somme 1916 in underground galleries entered beneath the Basilica of Notre Dame de Brebieres presents unflinching tableaux of trench life — and death. Photographs of soldiers’ faces mangled by shrapnel are almost too gruesome to bear.
World War I’s mass carnage is amplified at Thiepval, where a towering memorial built in the 1920s lists the names of more than 72,000 British Commonwealth fatalities whose bodies were never found or identified. Many among this vast number of the permanently missing were literally blown to pieces by massive artillery barrages.
Near the awesome memorial, the Thiepval Visitor Centre presents the Somme fighting with an intensely personal focus on the myriad missing men. Displayed are portrait photographs showing hundreds of the later casualties denied a marked grave.
A half-dozen miles to the northwest, grief for North American dead on July 1, 1916, is perpetuated at Beaumont-Hamel. Here a battalion of Newfoundland troops attached to a British division emerged from their trenches into murderous German machine-gun fire. Of the 780 officers and men who attacked, all but 110 were killed or wounded.
Amiens itself was shelled during the final German offensive in the spring of 1918. At the outset of World War II, the city was heavily bombed in May 1940 during Nazi Germany’s conquest of France.
Happily, the cathedral escaped any damage of consequence both times, making it a remarkably intact survivor of surpassing glory. Especially on a sunny day, it definitely deserves the northward jaunt from Paris.