The best walks and hikes around Rainvillers

A wall now traces its original layout onto the ground, offering visitors a glimpse into its religious and architectural past.

Leaving Beauvais to the northwest, the street and then the cycle path of the Saint-Quentin marsh, you quickly arrive at the superb body of water of Canada. It offers three kilometers of banks and a call for swimming in summer.

The Cathedral of Beauvais is one of the most important Gothic churches in France 🇫🇷!

Behind the cathedral you can still find a piece of the city fortifications dating from the 4th century, originally 1370 meters long and with 18 towers. The wall is decorated with cubic stones in the Pastoreaux pattern, which can be found similarly on the remains of the historic Roman city wall around Cologne. In the Middle Ages, the wall served to demarcate the episcopal district.

The early Romanesque church from the 10th century is one of the few surviving Carolingian chapels in France. It was actually supposed to be replaced by the nave of the cathedral, which was built from 1247 onwards, but after the collapse of the cathedral's record vault and tower, although the small original church surprisingly survived both, money and the Gothic style were at an end. And so, after being temporarily but permanently closed off by a partition wall, the cathedral's gigantic building now has a "mini nave" which is, however, closed off from the inside by a door. Unfortunately, the small original church was inaccessible when we visited. It would certainly be impressive to enter the Gothic giant building through the Romanesque west portal.

It is always nice to meet old friends again, especially when it happens unexpectedly. When you enter the wonderful but only half-finished cathedral of Beauvais, you are greeted by the famous image of St. Peter from St. Peter's Basilica. This fits with the building's claim: the highest Gothic vault, the highest church tower, the largest church in France. However, it is a Gothic Babel: the vault and tower collapsed, and that was the end of money and Gothic architecture. The cathedral is a huge torso, the nave of which is a comparatively tiny Romanesque building that stands lost in front of the huge, centuries-old temporary dividing wall that the nave was supposed to replace.

The collegiate church of Saint Barthelemy, founded in 1037, was secularized during the French Revolution and converted into a residential building. After war damage and demolition, the preserved choir today reminds us of the former building.

If you walk around the mighty torso of Beauvais Cathedral, you come across the seemingly forgotten north portal. While the bright south portal with its staircase literally draws people into the church, the north portal is blocked off by a construction grille and appears dark. Here you can find a magnificent trellis above the door, probably intended as a depiction of the root of Jesus, but which has been stripped of its figures. Huge carved doors, which are plainer than those of the south portal, secure the entrance. The wear on the doorstep shows that this portal was used a lot in earlier times.