For an author who fuelled the world’s wanderlust with his books, Jules Verne, who penned Around the World in Eighty Days in 1873 (it is the most translated French novel), didn’t do much travelling. After a day in Amiens, the canal-streaked Picardy town he settled in after relocating from Paris, I’m beginning to understand his reluctance to leave this tiny.
€180million facelift for WW1 bombarded French basilica
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€180million facelift for WW1 bombarded French basilica
Notre-Dame de Brebières basilica in the Somme was hit by 2,000 bombs but its golden statue held true to prophecies not to fall until the war ended
2 March 2021
The Basilica remains an important pilgrimage site and is visited by 60,000 people every year, not counting congregations at Mass.By Samantha David
Notre-Dame de Brebières, the neo-Byzantine Basilica in Albert (in the Somme department, half an hour north-east of Amiens) was built in 1885-1897, but totally destroyed in the First World War. It is said that 2,000 shells fell on the church.