Stairway to heaven - on top of the Cathedral

Washing Workout

So the next day I met my German friend again on the large square right in front of the cathedral and I hoped that this time it would work out and we could go up there. I hadn’t been very productive the hours before – I had slept in, cleaned my room a bit and washed my clothes which was always a kind of sports programme. I had to get down three floors to the laundry room, get up again, get down again after 1, 5 hours and put it into the dryer. Then I had to go back up to my room just to come back after 25 minutes to pick up my laundry and bring it back to my apartment. Of course, upstairs I could have taken the elevator, but I wanted to move a bit and furthermore, the elevator took hours to arrive, even if there were only 4 floors in that building. It was even more annoying when several people wanted to do their laundry, because there were only two machines and one dryer for the whole residency. But usually I was washing my clothes quite early in the morning, and there was nobody else doing it, so I had everything for myself. After I had washed my clothes I had only prepared something quick for lunch and watched some series while I was eating.

Cathedral - Second Try

After that I had taken the bus to the city centre and now I was in front of the cathedral, waiting for my friend. The weather wasn’t as good as the day before, but it wasn’t raining and it was quite warm for the North of France in May. When she had arrived, we went to the little souvenir shop next to the cathedral and asked the lady if it was possible to get up to the top of the church today. She told us that we had to wait 15 more minutes, because she couldn’t sell us the tickets before. We were a bit confused by that rule, but we waited. When we had finally gotten our free tickets (in France you always have to go and buy your ticket, even if it’s free) we went inside the cathedral to the entrance where the guide started. Well, it wouldn’t be a guide, it was just somebody opening the door and telling us to go upstairs for 400 steps. And so we did. I had already taken the stairs to reach the second platform of the Eiffel Tower, which are about 730, and several times the stairs of the Arc de Triomphe, which are “only” 280, I think. But 400 was also a lot and as in all the old buildings the stairs were old, high and there wasn’t much space at all. After half of the way we had to cross the front part of the building in order to come to the second stairway – the stairway to heaven. Already the view now was amazing – one could see the people down at the square in front of the cathedral and had a nice view over the city Amiens.

Photo Shooting above Amiens

We decided to make a short break because it was incredibly exhausting to get up all these stairs, so we took some pictures of each other and together, in front of the large window of the cathedral. It was quite windy and we were sweating a bit, so after only 10 minutes we continued our way. We wanted to the top, the real top and I couldn’t wait to see the view up there. The stairway on the other side of the cathedral was even smaller than the one before – I hadn’t expected that that’s even possible! But we continued our way and after 20 more minutes of sports and half-dying we had arrived. We went out of the stairway and it was incredible – one could see everything, the whole city of Amiens! The way up there had been very exhausting and hard, but the 40 minutes are totally worth it to have that panoramic view. We took some pictures of each other again, some selfies together and started to identify buildings we knew. My faculty right next to the cathedral, the laboratory of my boyfriend, the university of my friend and many other things.

It was wonderful to see that city that has become my second home from another perspective before I would leave it. So we spent some time up there, because after walking up all those stairs we didn’t want to go down quickly. It was windy and a bit cold, but the view was so fascinating that we hardly realized that. We saw the wonderful nature around Amiens, the beautiful buildings and the ugly ones, people walking around, cars, buses – everything! I couldn’t stop taking pictures, and due to the nice blue sky and the white clouds, it looked like a painting. But after we had taken photos of almost every place, building and ankle, we decided to start the way down. It wouldn’t be as exhausting as the way up, but walking down old stairs like that was also something exigent. And it really was. Our legs were still a bit weak because of the walk up there, so it was even more exhausting to go down again.

After 20 minutes and some breaks we finally arrived at the exit. Because we were already quite adapted to the French lifestyle, the first thing we wanted to do afterwards, was having a coffee in our favourite café. So we went there and had a nice coffee, as award for walking up and down that huge ancient building. We talked a bit about plans for the rest of the week and her projects for university, but as I would meet my boyfriend a bit earlier that evening, I had to leave soon. We said goodbye, but agreed on meeting at least once again before I returned to Germany. It was complicated for me to think about all the goodbyes I had to go through before leaving. But for the moment I just went to the apartment of my boyfriend (he had left work early that day) to see him.

Sleepless nights

As usual, we went into the city centre to have something to eat. Afterwards, we visited the Australian Bar and watched a Football Match. It was late already, but he wanted to come with me by bus to stay at my place for the night, something that made me really happy, even if I didn’t really understand why we couldn’t just stay at his place. But obviously he didn’t like that so much. So we took a walk through the city centre until we arrived at the bus station. As always when he was taking the bus with me, there was a delay and he laughed about my panic to miss the bus (which I was born with as German). The rest of the night was as usual – we watched something in TV until both of us were very tired and we fell asleep, at least a small part of the night. I would miss him so much.. and the whole time I was laying there in my bed, awake because I didn’t have enough space, I thought about something I could give him when I left. Something that would avoid that he forgot me the day after I had returned to Germany. And I had already some ideas. Furthermore, I had a lot of time to do something sweet and creative, so I was very motivated to give him something he would never forget.

Photo gallery