Amiens; Sunday, 21 June, 2026

I had a really good night’s sleep, helped by the excellent air conditioning in the hotel. A quick breakfast and then it was off out into the already broiling city for some more exploring, with my first stop of the morning being about 10 minutes’ walk away.

Whilst he was born in Nantes, the author Jules Verne spent the last 34 years of his life in the city, becoming involved in local government, and completing many of his books whilst living here, with perhaps the most famous being Around the world in eighty days.

His former home has now been turned into a museum which preserves some of the rooms as they would have looked when Jules and his family lived here, whilst others are a museum dedicated to his works and all their adaptations.

From the Jules Verne house it was about another 10-minute walk onto the Musée de Picardie, which is one of those grand French museums that covers a weird selection of topics, in this case art and archaeology. The main and upper floors of the gallery house a wide collection of art from many different styles and eras, whilst the basement houses a collection of Archaeological artefacts from the earliest stone tools through to the Romans and beyond, with a particular focus on Egyptology.

I spent quite a bit of time in the museum, in part as there was quite a lot to see, but also because they had excellent air-conditioning that had been turned up to the max, so it was beautifully cool to wander around.

From the museum I wandered back into the centre of town and grabbed a quick bite to eat, though with the heat I wasn’t feeling particularly hungry – just more interested in some very cold water that really hit the spot.

My final stop of the day was over on the opposite side of the river to the old town. Over the centuries the Somme River, which is relatively slow moving at this point, has been diverted into countless canals that have been used to irrigate the land and to create lots of small islands on which Market Gardens traditionally operated. These days many of the Market Gardens have gone, but instead a small number of the islands have been turned into a sculpture gallery which you can wander around, crossing over the main canals on high bridges that allow traditional boats, that have been adapted to become tour boats to sail under them.

From the gardens it was time to start heading back, with the walk back to the station taking about 20 minutes, which felt much longer in the now really hot sun. Thankfully the inbound train was arriving just as I got to the station, so I was able to board right away and sit in air-conditioned comfort for the 15 minutes before we departed.

An on-time arrival into Lille Flandres and then the now very familiar walk across to Lille Europe where I arrived with check-in for the train an hour ahead of mine still ongoing. I was hanging around waiting for my check-in to open when one of the gate line staff asked if I’d like to be moved up onto the earlier train as they had spare seats, which I gladly chose, so I was onboard a few minutes later and speeding back to London a full hour ahead of where I would otherwise have been.