Experience the best of Amiens

The Gothic cathedral of Notre-Dame, begun in 1220 and a World Heritage site, is the largest in France by interior volume, with a west front of sculpted saints and a vast nave. The Saint-Leu quarter beside the Somme, a district of low brick houses, cafés and footbridges, has the river splitting into channels.

The hortillonnages, about 300 hectares of marsh gardens cut by narrow waterways, are worked by growers who ferry vegetables in flat-bottomed boats, and visitors can glide through them in a small punt. Jules Verne lived in Amiens for decades, and his house is a museum. The Somme battlefields of the First World War lie to the north-east, and the Baie de Somme, a wide estuary of sand and seals, is on the Channel coast to the west.

Macarons d'Amiens, soft almond-paste biscuits, and duck pâté baked in pastry are old local products, while the ficelle picarde, a pancake rolled around ham and mushrooms in cream, is a regional dish. The climate is mild and often grey, with rain in any month.