Amiens Cathedral...

DH and I stayed in the French town of Amiens for 2 nights. The town is on the River Somme and has a number of defined and very quaint (and old) areas. Our hotel was in a street running off a large shopping precinct which I would suggest the paving is rather newish. As we strolled up that big wide mall, we could see glimpses of a cathedral looking building if we looked left on the side streets, so on our first afternoon we started walking towards it.

As we got closer we saw that this Cathedral covered several town blocks...

We read the board informing us that it was Amiens Cathedral and in 1981 it had been listed by UNESCO as a World Hertitage site. I was entranced by the details...especially all the small sculptured people on the outside of the Cathedral.

We admired the outside of this magnificent building and then walked off down the road...Ah ha! An Aussie flag! 

Then we walked into the town's information centre where we happened to 'run into' an Aussie from Melbourne...we chatted and found out that she was also there for ANZAC Day. Then she asked us if we'd been inside the Cathedral...it was magnificent she said...and free!  ( now we certainly don't begrudge paying entrance fees to wonderful old buildings but after all the weeks of paying the equivalent of $AUD 22-25 each, every time we went to these places, finding a free one seemed a bonus)

So we walked back across the Square and in we went. 

The building dates back to the 11th Century and unlike England this Catholic Church was not destroyed in the 1500s...

There were tablets paying homage to various Allied soldiers during WW1 including the Aussies and the New Zealanders....

This photo gives the idea of the size of this Cathedral....

Some of the beautiful stained glass windows...

One blurry pic of the Madonna and Child....many of the statues inside the church were gilded...

Another sculpture of MRy and baby Jesus...but this one was outside...

More information on Amiens Cathedral, including stats on size and history, can be found here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiens_Cathedral. I was just amazed by its size and the work of the craftsmen who worked on it.