Christmas markets in Amiens and Arras

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Day trip to Amiens

On Saturday, November 26th, my colleague John and I decided to travel to Amiens for the day and shop around in their Christmas markets (starting that weekend, they are on until Christmas).

We took the short train trip and got into town around 9h30, an hour too early for the markets. We decided to walk through the town, get a feel for the size of it (it's much smaller than we thought!) and see the famous cathedral. While looking for a map in the train station, we heard "Lost tourists?" behind us. In normal circumstances, we might have assumed that this sentence was aimed at any number of people other than us. But seeing as we've been in France for 4 months, we know now that hearing spoken English (with a British accent, I might add) was most likely directed to us. We turned around to see one of our favourite and regular tour guides, who visit Beaumont-Hamel weekly with Australian tourists. Brian was waiting for a family who he'd be leading around the area. I was surprised that he recognized us out of what he calls our "elf uniforms"...

After saying goodbye to Brian, we walked out of the station and made our way towards the cathedral, and ran in to yet another of our regular tour guides! Seems that they all pick up their groups in Amiens, then drive them over to BH later in the day.

Finally on our way, for real this time, we walked through what looked like a ghost town since no shops or market "chalets" were yet open. Perfect time to be a tourist, since when we got to the enormous cathedral, we were the only ones there! We got to take lots of beautiful pictures.

Around 10h30, all the chalets were open so we started our shopping. The products were not quite what I expected, mostly very expensive and not of very good quality. Too bad, but not the end of the world seeing as Amiens has a lot to offer in terms of shopping other then the markets...and by this, I of course mean that they have a H&M! I was happy.

Around 1h, we met up with Louise (my supervisor) and her hubby Allen, in France to visit her for a couple weeks. We went for lunch with them and then went through the markets again. We saw something called "île mistérieuse": a small area of the market was set to represent Canada...or the French's idea of Canada, rather. Complete with polar bears, penguins and wig-wams, this small area allowed kids to skate on an "ice rink" and have their picture taken with a "RCMP officer". Pretty accurate, don't you think?

Around 4h30, we had done at least 5 laps around town. With still 3 hours before our train home, we opted to hop in with Louise and Allen and get a ride home. Much needed nap as soon as I got home!



Arras's Christmas Markets

On Sunday, John and I set out to see Arras's version of the Christmas markets. Having been told by our French coworkers that the Amiens markets were better than our own, we were not expecting much. However, we were pleasantly surprised to see how much variety they had. Although smaller in size, the markets here are much more welcoming and have interesting products; jewellery, food, decorations...

Also, bonus: it was raining when we were there. Ok, so not normally something to be happy about, but it seems to be a general rule that French locals do not go out in the rain (maybe they'd melt..?) so we had the whole place to ourselves!

In the afternoon, we followed a recommendation by Louise and went to the movie theatre to see the French film "Intouchables". It was incredible! I have never laughed so much in public, especially not during a drama movie. I can't wait for it to be available in stores.

On Sunday night, we went out for supper at our typical spot, the raclette restaurant (Ch'ti Charivari) for our colleague Faye's departure (she leaves this weekend).

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Photos

Raclette Supper
John, myself and Kariane (BH!)