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 Jules Verne |
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Amiens: Jules Verne City When you ever travel to the French city Amiens, you can’t miss the fact that this is Jules Verne City. It starts on the toll-road, where the entrance to the autoroute is named after the famous author. Inside the city, there is the Jules Verne University, at least one school named after the man, he has his own street, and so on, and so on. You might even forget that the Cathedral is not named the St Jules.
There are two museums for Verne. One is the House of Jules Verne (Maison Jules Verne), in the Rue de Jules Verne. This house should be the house where the man lived and wrote his books. There’s a wonderful painting in the patio, and the house has been built in Jugendstil.
On the ground floor, you enter the house in a very dark Neo-Gothic styled dining room. The next room, a sitting room, is very light and vivid. These are the rooms where the guests were invited into. There are many photographs on the walls. On the first floor you find a library with all books written by the man, and his writing room. The second floor covers the plays and movies that have been made out of the books, and yet another writing room.
The museum is quite new, and gives good insight in the life of Verne. It feels authentic, and the background noises and all makes you imagine Verne left the room not that long ago. The personnel of the museum is friendly, and they do speak English as well. But knowing a bit of French is better because you will understand more of the collection. On the Rue de Jules Verne is also No. 44, the house where Verne has lived for 14 years and died. It’s not a museum, but there is a plaquette on the wall.
The side-streets of the Rue de Jules Verne contain some wall-paintings with pictures and maps from the books of Verne.
One side of the street ends at the Cirque, which has been initiated by none other than Verne himself. The idea of the chimney for an in its time advanced heating system was his design. Elsewhere in the city, near the train station is the Imaginaire Jules Verne. This is also a new museum, situated in an old movie-theatre. It has temporary exhibitions, so check there site for what’s shown at the moment. When I was there, they had the exhibition “The Children of Captain Jules Verne”. It was built with the idea that Verne and his contacts with a scientific background explored three different kinds of environment (or spheres) in fiction (the depths of he ocean, space, and the tops of the trees) which have been explored “in real life” in later years. The exposition shows how Verne's fantasies grow into real science. The exposition ends with a 3D computer model of the Nautilus. With 3D glasses on, you can navigate the ship under and on the sea. The model is spiced up with black-and-white pictures from the original books. The personnel here helps you out in English if you don’t understand French. And they will navigate the Nautilus for you if you can’t. At the counter there are many, many books and goodies with Verne as sole topic. Another must-see in Amiens for Verne fans is the Cimetière de la Madeleine. This is where Verne has been buried. The cemetery is out of the city centre, in the north-west direction towards Longpré-de-Amiens. There’s a bus going there. There’s a map near the main entrance where you can find where you need to go to find Verne’s grave. However, walking around a bit makes you discover real gothic-style graves, dating from the early nineteenth century, when the cemetery was made. Many of them have been a bit neglected and give the authentic horror-creeps. Please notice that the cemetery is still in use and it is not gentlemen-like to throw a party among the mourning.
What else to see?Amiens is not really a steampunk city. Many of the old buildings have been destroyed in the wars. The Cathedral is interesting, although not steampunk. It is the largest structure in the old gothic style on earth, they say. It contains the skull of St John the Baptist as a relic and there’s a labyrinth there.Not far away from the Cathedral is the Horloge, a piece of art that is in my eyes very steampunk. The old streets of St Leu are called “the Venice of the North”, or, to the Dutchies, probably “The Amsterdam of the South”. A bit mediaeval, it is. Amiens is situated in the Somme region. This is the infamous region where so many have died in the Great War (1914-1918). War cemeteries and memorials are scattered over the hills. Those who are interested in the War that finally ended the nineteenth century might find many interesting sites here. © Yaghish 2006 |
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