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Abbeville
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ABBEVILLE
lies about halfway from Calais to Paris and makes a convenient stop-off on the N1. Until hit by a German air raid in May 1940, it was also a very beautiful town. Nowadays, all that remain of its former glories are a superbly ornate Flemish-style
gare SNCF
; a
belfry
, reputedly the oldest in France; and the Gothic
church of St-Vulfran
, which was on a par with the cathedrals at Amiens and Beauvais. Restoration work on the church, which was badly scarred during the war, only finished in 1993. The western facade still bears superficial scars but the interior pillars have been replaced with exact copies and the keystones painted with their original colours. Also worth a visit is the eighteenth-century
ChA?teau of Bagatelle
, 2km south of town - not to be confused with the nearby amusement park of the same name - set in ten hectares of parkland (guided visits July & Aug daily except Tues 2-6pm; 40F/a?¬6.10).
The
tourist office
is at 1 place de l'Amiral-Courbet (tel 03.22.24.27.92, fax 03.22.31.08.26) and organizes guided visits to the cathedral. If you are looking for somewhere to
stay
, a cheap option is the
Grand-HA?tel de la Gare
, 21 av de la Gare (tel 03.22.24.04.09; under 160F/a?¬24). A more comfortable alternative, with a nice restaurant, is the
HA?tel de France
, in place du Pilori in the town centre (tel 03.22.24.00.42, fax 03.22.24.26.15; 300-400F/a?¬46-61; menus from 98F/a?¬14.94). Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
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France,
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