Our train trip from Bruges to Amiens went smoothly and we loved having the opportunity to see the gorgeous country side slide by. There were many fields in of bright yellow, (canola?) which looked beautiful, as were the tiny villages we passed through. We arrived mid afternoon, settled into our hotel and, as is our usual way, headed out for a big walk around town. Amiens, the capital of Picardy, was devastated during the both world wars, so there aren’t a lot of historic buildings left, but one benefit (if there is any benefit from war) is that the town is now well laid out, with wide roads and many parks.  Fortunately, the Cathedral Notre Dame was spared and it is simply magnificent, being twice the size of Notre Dame – Paris and is the largest cathedral in France (now that is saying something!).

We only had one night in Amiens, as we had arranged to pick up our hire car at midday the following day, from Avis at the Gare d’Amiens. We arrived at midday, as required, to find the office closed for lunch from 12pm to 2pm! We should have realised 12pm wasn’t going to cut it. We are in France after all and nothing interrupts a lunch break! We waited until 2pm and arrived at the office again. Still no-one. Hmmm, what to do? There was a phone number on the window, so I took it upon myself to call them and sort out what was happening, but only heard a recorded message for my trouble. I then called the number on our reservation form and spoke, in french, to a very unhelpful man who said (also in french) ‘no madam, you do not have a reservation for a car’. Anyone who is learning, or has learned, another language will know how difficult it is to have a telephone conversation, even when things are going well. However, by now I was getting a bit cranky, so proceeded to have an argument, with him, all in french. I couldn’t believe it, the words just fell out of my mouth!! Many, many times in my lessons I have felt that nothing was staying in my head,  but I realized then that quite a bit actually had. Bravo to me! I won’t pretend that it was perfect, but I was able to hold my own and I understood most of what he said and, most specifically, ‘ I can speak english, but I am french, madam, so I will only speak french’.

Long story short,  there are two train stations at Amiens, one in the centre of town, where we were and another, 50 klms away, also confusingly, called Gare d’Amiens. To catch a train there was going to take another hour at least and to catch a taxi, ridiculously expensive..

Out with the trusty laptop, to see if there was another Avis office in Amiens and, voila, there was! Right in the centre of town. On the phone I got again and called them, to see if we could change our booking and pick up the car there. Again, all in french and again, with errors a plenty, but I spoke to lovely guy, he understood exactly what I wanted and helped me out straight away.  Success!!. We threw our bags into a cab and now we are the proud owners, for 3 weeks anyway, of a brand new Renault ‘Captur’ with GPS. We finally left Amiens at 3pm, 3 hours later than expected,  but since it had previously looked like we were going to be there for much longer, 3 hrs was not too much of a concern.Whew! My french had been sorely tested, but I  was ecstatic to have managed our way out of ‘un petit problème’.