Les Hortillonnages, Amiens

In Amiens, I stumbled upon the Hortillonnages. In fact when I looked at the map to see where Amiens might be, it was the configuration of blue that caught my eye - it turned out to be the river Somme, and what a lot of lakes etc...

You can walk for 7km along a riverside path ... but on the day my feet took me towards the park, and an instinct sent the feet along a different path, the sun was low in the sky. 

Les Hortillonnages are the area at top left - here's the satellite view, closer up -

An area of drainage canals and small islands containing gardens and summer cottages, accessible only by small boats. It's been like this for about 800 years; originally the area covered 10,000 hectares, now only 300 hectares are left, of which 25 hectares or so are used by a dozen of the remaining market gardeners.

A short way along the road was a sign indicating an art display -

 Over the bridge (the passerelle) we go, to check it out -

 What a lovely peaceful place.

 Part of Sheena Seek's installation -

Hopefully the text will be legible if you click on the image -

 The next one didn't work so well for me -

 This was hard to photograph -

 One part of the larger whole - it had a really good feeling to it -

 Not art, just someone's hidey-hole....

 Back to the installations - a hop yard -

 These lovely white branches, a skeleton that might be walking around in the forest -

 Some things that were there became part of "the art" ...

 A distant view of something jolly -

 More glimpses over the canals -

 Back to the art - this one was large and you only "got it" after walking around for a while -

 A view into the city, and this strange monster crawling out of the swamp...

 Back to the riverside and the calm reflections of evening -

 But it was the anarchic area of old cottages and leaping spans (high enough to pole a boat underneath) that was so interesting -