Travel through the centuries | Historic towns and villages | Gothic heritage | Museums and Galleries | Performing arts

WW1…

The Armistice Clearing
Route de Soissons, 60200 Compiègne, Tel: 00 333 44 85 14 18
The fields and towns of Picardy feature constant reminders of the Great War, in the rebuilt architecture as well as the battlefields and cemeteries.
In this clearing, the Allies and the Central Powers signed the Armistice that ended the Great War. It was also the place that Hitler forced the surrender of the French in June 1940.
The original railway carriage was destroyed by the Nazis in 1944. This replica, from the same rolling stock, still marks the spot of the signing of the Armistice.

Historial de la Grande Guerre
The Historial de la Grande Guerre in Péronne (Somme) is a major WW1 museum and the starting point par excellence of any tour of the Battlefields of the Somme.
Péronne is just off the A1 motorway in northern France, about 1½ hrs drive from Calais.

La Caverne du Dragon
Chemin des Dames, 02160 Oulches la Vallée-Foulon, Tel: 00 333 23 25 14 18
This was an old quarry which was transformed into a barrack by the Germans in 1915, with command posts, sleeping quarters and even a chapel.
The quarry has now be turned into a museum which traces the everyday lives of the men in the war.

FINE ARTS...

Musée Condé
Château de Chantilly, 60631 Chantilly, Tel : 00 333 44 62 62 64
The museum, located in the prestigious Chantilly castle, houses a rich collection gathered in the 19th century by the duke of Aumale, a great books and arts lover: precious books and manuscripts, china, pottery and ceramics, furniture, drawings… and the second most important collection in France of old paintings, after the Louvre, with works by Raphaël, Nicolas Poussin, Delacroix, Ingres…

Musée Antoine Lécuyer
28, rue Antoine Lécuyer, 02100 Saint-Quentin, Tel: 00 333 23 64 06 66
Over one hundred of Quentin de la Tour's pastels have been collected here.
As one of the most renowned French Painters of the 18th Century and a portraitist to Louis XV, de la Tour was the town's benefactor, and a local hero.
Also on view are other pastels from the 19th and 20th centuries, 17th and 18th century French and Italian paintings, 18th century furniture, and other decorative arts.
http://www.mquentindelatour.com

CRAFTS...

Galerie du Vitrail
40 rue Victor Hugo, 80000 Amiens, Tel: 00 333 22 91 81 18
The Galerie du Vitrail houses the only private collection of stained glass window in France.
The 16th century building is packed with religious and civil works, the most ancient dating back to the 11th century.
There are also a workshop and a boutique on site.

The Royal Tapestry Manufactory
24, rue Henri Brispot, 60000 Beauvais, Tel 00 333 44 05 14 28
National Gallery of Tapestry
22, rue Saint-Pierre, 60000 Beauvais, Tel: 00 333 44 15 39 10
Beauvais tapestry has been collected by the rich and famous for centuries. The Getty Museum, The Frick Museum and the Elysée Palace are a few that hold examples of this fine craft. Beauvais was a Mecca for tapestry for over three centuries. Louis XIV created a Royal Tapestry manufactory in Beauvais in 1664, where tapestries were manufactured for the French court and exported throughout Europe. The original was destroyed in June 1940, but the art lives on, thanks to the local and national government following the same technique as in the 17th Century.

Musée de la Poterie
17 av Tristan-Klingsor, 60650 Lachapelle-au-Pot (17km West of Beauvais), Tel: 00 333 44 04 50 70
Celebrating the hand-made pottery from different potters in the Pays de Bray. This area on the borders of Picardy and Normandie, has been famous since Roman times for its pottery.

FAMOUS CHARACTERS …

Musée Jean Calvin
6 place Aristide Briand, 60400 Noyon, Tel : 00 333 44 44 03 59
The house where Calvin was born, destroyed in 1918, has been rebuilt identically, and now contains a museum dedicated to the life and work of the Reformer, as well as a history of Protestantism in France in the 16th and 17th Centuries.

Musée Alexandre Dumas
24 rue Demoustiers, 02600 Villers-Cotterêts, Tel : 00 333 23 96 23 30
Displays documents related to the three Dumas: General Dumas, Alexandre Dumas, father, author of "The Three Musketeers", and Alexandre Dumas, son, author of "The Lady with the Camellias". Alexandre Dumas father spent his youth in Villers-Cotterêts. A little known fact is that a vineyard in the Lot is owned by a direct descendant of D'Artagnan (or, rather, of the person on whom Dumas modeled D'Artagnan)!

Maison Jules Verne and Centre International Jules Verne
2 rue Charles Duboi, 80000 Amiens, Tel : 00 333 22 45 37 84
Enter the universe of the famous writer in the house where he lived from 1882 to 1900.
An impressive collection of more than 20 000 pieces have been gathered there: ancient books, first editions, posters, personal belongings, scale models…

MISCELLANEOUS…

Musée Vivant du Cheval
Grandes Ecuries, 60242 Chantilly, Tel : 00 333 44 57 40 40
In France’s “capital of horses”, the Living Horse Museum is housed in the palatial Grandes Ecuries – the great stables - of the fabulous Château where the kings of France were frequent visitors.
www.musee-vivant-du-cheval.fr

Musée Boucher-de-Perthes
24 rue Gontier Patin, 80100 Abbeville, Tel : 00 333 22 24 08 49
The museum, located in one of France’s oldest belfries, built 1209, houses a great diversity of collections on 3 main themes: archaeology (Jacques Boucher de Perthes was the founder of prehistory), fine arts, and natural history.

Picardy Museum
48, rue de la République, 80 000 Amien,Tel: 00 333 22 97 14 00
Picardy Museum was designed as a place to house the region's antiques, as a palace based on the model of the new Louvre of Napoleon III and as a monument to Picardy to celebrate the region's glory and genius.
The monumental architecture of the façades and splendid decoration of the building's interior have been conserved from the former palace.
Through its various events, exhibitions and workshops, the Picardy Museum acts as an important cultural centre for the town.
The museum’s specialisations are classical antiquity, archaeology, religious art, paintings, wall decorations and sculptures.