Camping Le Parc des Cygnes

Allocate a few days to Amiens, for there’s much to see, including a museum dedicated to local lad Jules Verne and a stunner of a cathedral that’s very much in the mould of the famed Notre-Dâme in Paris. It’s also worth spending a bit of time pottering through the cobbled streets of the Saint-Leu area and boarding a boat trip to gawp at the Hortillonnages floating gardens. Away from the centre, you may like to take a 10-minute drive to hire canoes for river paddling, spend the day at the city’s zoo or give the kids a taste of the past at the Samara archaeology park and living museum. Should you feel the need to swap city life for sea air, it’s around a 45-minute drive to the Bay of the Somme. Saint-Valery-sur-Somme and Le Crotoy are the places for boat trips, nature walks and heritage train rides; aim a little further north for the sweeping sandy beaches of Fort-Mahon-Plage and Le Touquet.