Accommodation somme?

[Kathie]

Reading the post on de la Paix in Albert made me wonder if I should explore the Basilique.

I will be spending a week in November in the area and had decided to stay in Amiens - more choice of hotel, places to wonder round on dark evenings, choice of eateries.

However, I have idly begun to wonder - will travelling from Amiens to Delville, Warlencourt, Peronne, LE Cateau etc be a hassle in the November weather? In the past I did not mind the extra half hour or so - but will roads be so very different to the summer??

Kathie

[burlington]

Reading the post on de la Paix in Albert made me wonder if I should explore the Basilique.

I will be spending a week in November in the area and had decided to stay in Amiens - more choice of hotel, places to wonder round on dark evenings, choice of eateries.

However, I have idly begun to wonder - will travelling from Amiens to Delville, Warlencourt, Peronne, LE Cateau etc be a hassle in the November weather? In the past I did not mind the extra half hour or so - but will roads be so very different to the summer??

Kathie

Quieter I would have thought apart from days around the 11th. Weather should be OK as well.

I was in the area last November 11th and days around it and the weather was fine-ish.

Have a good trip.

Martin

[pmaasz]

Kathie: You are right about good choice of restaurants in Amiens, but I hope you won't be staying in the Grand Hotel de l'Univers. We stayed there a few years ago and unless some mighty big changes have been made, which I doubt, it was potentially an absolute fire-trap that would not pass UK safety standards. (My wife used to have to examine hotels and that included safety checks). If you are staying there make sure you have a room on the street sides so there is at least some chance of getting out in the event of a fire. The rooms at the back had no fire escape or access for the 'sapeurs-pompiers' and the windows looked down over a glass roof.

I just looked at the hotel on Trip Advisor and the reviews are appalling.

[Alan_J]

Why not consider Arras, rather than Amiens as a base? I've stayed in both, and would say Arras is a much nicer base than Amiens - there are still plenty of choices of places to eat, and the drive to the Somme battlefields is reasonably similar in distance from both.

Alan

[Paul Reed]

I think you would find Albert somewhat mort in November, personally. I would agree with Alan that Arras would be better.

[bruce]

You can't get much closer to the battlefield than Avril's!

Bruce

[angelab]

I have stayed twice in the Ibis in Amiens, and found it excellent.

You can park outside overnight and OK until the meters start functioning in the morning, or pay for a space in their underground car park.

Staff are very pleasant; breakfasts were extremely good.

You can walk to anything in the town centre in five minutes, including a large amount of eateries.

By car, it takes perhaps half an hour to get to Albert and the battlefields on a good main road (plus there are several memorials in Amiens' wonderful cathedral; and en route to Albert you pass Querrieux where a plaque outside the village chateau recalls the fact that it was Rawlinson's HQ, and visited by the King).

Angela

[charliebrady]

Reading the post on de la Paix in Albert made me wonder if I should explore the Basilique.

I will be spending a week in November in the area and had decided to stay in Amiens - more choice of hotel, places to wonder round on dark evenings, choice of eateries.

However, I have idly begun to wonder - will travelling from Amiens to Delville, Warlencourt, Peronne, LE Cateau etc be a hassle in the November weather? In the past I did not mind the extra half hour or so - but will roads be so very different to the summer??

Kathie

Hello Kathie,

First of all, please let me say that the comments regarding the Hotel de la Paix in Albert in my earlier post were my own personal opinions, prejudiced obviously by the many happy occasions I have spent there in the past, firstly with M.Duthoit and latterly with Isabelle. I am sure that anybody who has not previously stayed there will have little, if anything, to complain about, except maybe the lack of other guests, particularly in November (as Paul says, Albert will be mort at that time of the year), in which case the de la Basilique would probably be a better bet.

I would also endorse the suggestion that Arras may be a better place to stay at that time of the year - there is a selection of hotels opposite the railway station, and other places of interest would be easier to reach, such as Vimy Ridge and northwards towards the Salient.

Have a good trip,

John