Amiens

Introduction

Cathedral in Amiens

© porz

Amiens is a major city in the French region of Picardie. It is the capital of the Somme department and has about 140,000 inhabitants.

Getting There

By Plane

Beauvais-Tillé Airport (BVA) is often billed as a Paris airport, but is just about 45 minutes south of Amiens. It is used by budget airlines, most notably Ryanair (Alghero, Alicante, Bari, Bologna, Bratislava, Cagliari, Dublin, Girona, Glasgow, Madrid, Marseille, Milan, Oslo, Pisa, Porto, Rome, Barcelona-Reus, Shannon, Stockholm, Trapani and Venice), but also Blue Air (Bucharest and Cluj-Napoca) and Wizzair (Bucharest, Gdansk, Budapest, Cluj-Napoca, Katowice, Prague, Sofia, Timisoara, Warsaw and Wroclaw). The airport is located roughly 85 kilometres out of Paris near the town of Beauvais.

To/from the airport

• Bus: Buses leave the airport 20 minutes after each flight (or as soon as they are filled) and charge €13 for the 80-minute-journey to Porte Maillot in Paris. Tickets can be bought at either the kiosk just beside the luggage carousel after immigration counters (cash only) or outside the airport (exit the airport, turn right and walk straight on, the ticket counters are just ahead to the right, cash or card). A cab would cost in the order of €120-160 and the small shuttle buses cost around €18 per person. For the return trip to Beauvais, buses leave Porte Maillot approximately 3 hours before flight time. Be there about 10-15 minutes ahead in order to allow time for passengers to board the bus and be filled. Ticket must be purchased prior to boarding at the ticket counter, and queue may be long. In order to save time, buy 2 one-way tickets upon arrival in Beauvais, and use the second ticket for this journey. Tickets may also be purchased ahead online but must be booked at least 24 hours prior to departure.
• To go to the town centre of Beauvais, you can take the commuter bus provided by the Transports Urbains du Beauvaisis. Ligne 12 goes to Mairie - Zone d’activités des Tilleuls - Tillé - Aéroport. The Airport Shuttle goes to Parc Municipal - Maillart - Cathédrale - Mairie (City Hall) - Gare SNCF - Kennedy - Descartes - Délie - Saint-Germain - Elispace - Airport.
• Rail: Beauvais train station is situated almost 4 kilometres away, with connections to Paris Gare du Nord, Amiens, etc.
• There are also many minibus and shuttle services that can bring you to Disneyland Park.
• Taxis and rental cars are both widely available at the airport as well.

Sleep

Upscale

Keep Connected

Internet

France is one of the best connected countries in the world, with data speed for upload/download ranked among the top 5 in the world. Most hotels and hostels would have in-house facilities to provide free internet access. Many major cities also have initiatives put in place to provide free wi-fi connection in public spaces. Alternatively there are internet cafés available in most cities/towns at a reasonable rate. Some private businesses, such as local cafés (or even the Starbuck's chain), may also provide wi-fi connectivity - keep an eye out for the signs by the shop windows/doors. Also look for the @ symbol prominently displayed, which indicates internet availability. However, with most homes now wired for the internet, cyber cafés are increasingly hard to find, especially outside the major cities.

Phone

See also: International Telephone Calls

To dial an international number from France, the IDD is 00, followed by the country code that you wish to dial, the area code and the phone number.
To call France from abroad, start with the international direct dialing (IDD) code from the country you're in, followed by French country code 33, the area code (drop the first zero in front of the area code), and the phone number. French telephone numbers are rarely given without the area code. The telephone number, including the area code, is made up of 10 digits. They are written in a set of 5 pairs of digits (i.e. 01 xx xx xx xx xx).
In France, the area code designations are: 01 - Paris Area ("Région Ile-de-France"), 02 - northwest, 03 - northeast, 04 - southeast, 05 - southwest, 06 - mobile phone providers. From 2010 onwards, 07 will also be assigned to mobile phone providers in order to cater for the surging demands for mobile phones.

Emergency numbers are 15 (medical aid), 17 (police station) and 18 (fire/rescue). You can also use the European emergency number 112 (perhaps a better choice if you don't speak French). These calls are free and accessible from virtually any phone, including locked cellphones.

France uses the GSM standard of cellular phones (900 MHz and 1800 MHz bands) used in most of the world outside of the U.S. There are several companies (Orange, SFR, Free, Bouygues Télécom and some others MVNOs like Virgin Mobile) offering wireless service. The country is almost totally covered but you may have difficulties using your mobile phone in rural or mountainous areas. If you stay for some time, it may be advisable to buy a pre-paid cell phone card that you can use in any phone that supports the GSM standard on the 900/1800 MHz bands. Then incoming calls and SMSes are free.

Post

La Poste in France is also referred to as the PTT (short for postes, télégraphes et téléphones). The mailboxes are painted bright yellow and often there is a slot for local city mail and another slot for "outside mail". Normally there is a queue in the post office, but most of the post offices have the self service machine installed which is quite easy to operate. Nowadays many of the tabac and even some of the souvenir shops also sell postage stamps. Normally an overseas postcard costs almost as much as sending a letter. Mails sent in France also have a zip code. The first two numbers represent the administrative department (e.g. in Paris' case that would be 75).

Post offices are generally open from 8:00am to 7:00pm Monday through Friday, and 8:00am to noon on Saturdays. Apart from the basic job of mailing letters, most of the post offices do some banking activities also and some even have photocopy machines and cyber cafes for internet access.

For international package services, you might also check options with companies like DHL, UPS or TNT, which have competitive services and prices and might be faster in most cases.

External Links

• Official Governmental Website