Picardy

Picardy is at the heart of the historical beginnings of France; it is a veritable treasure-trove of art and natural beauty.
The region of Picardy is made up of 3 departments, the Somme, the Aisne & the Oise, where we live. It offers property buyers great transport links & superb access by road rail & sea. It is an ideal location for regular weekend breaks & trips to Paris and the rest of northern France. Picardy has a rich and eventful past, making it an extremely attractive destination for property buyers with an interest in history and culture. Picardy is renowned for its rolling valleys, lush meadows & verdant woodland.

Nature lovers can can enjoy the majestic forests of Chantilly and Compiegne. The high prices of Parisian properties make Picardy a popular alternative destination for foreign property buyers.
The region has also one of the most unspoilt stretches of coastline in the whole of France, offering impressive sand dunes, striking cliffs & sandy beaches. Due to little development, the coast has kept all its original beauty and visitors will find it bathed in the half tones of light that artists such as Sisley, Degas or Seurat came to capture. The Somme estuary, which is very popular with sailing enthusiasts, is lined with pretty fishing hamlets. Le Crotoy is an estuary village that has long attracted many artists and writers and it was here that Jules Verne wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues under the Sea. The dunes and marshes along the majestic Somme harbour a bird sanctuary and the area is also host to a huge range of fauna and flora.

With unspoilt shores, plains and forests, canals and rivers the region is a haven for anyone who enjoys fishing and water sports. It's also an ideal place for cycling and riding. Horse riding and racing are important regional sports and Chantilly is the country's thoroughbred capital. The Grandes Ecuries, next to the racecourse, stables 240 of the country's finest horses. Archery has also been a popular sport since the Middle Ages and of course there is also an enthusiatic cricket club in Chantilly. For golfing enthusiasts there are some of the best golf courses in the whole of France to choose from.

Picardy is the cradle of gothic art with six splendid cathedrals and numerous churches and abbeys. Amiens, Beauvais, Laon, Senlis, Noyon and Soissons are known for their massive cathedrals and the beautiful old towns of all these towns remain very much living and working places and not just heritage centres. To the south, the châteaux Chantilly and Compiègne are nestled in a large forest that once extended from Paris to the eastern frontier.

The heart of the tranquil Somme Valley is less than an hour's drive from Calais on the A16 and Beauvais, the capital of Oise, is less than an hour's drive from Paris.
For accessible, good value property in northern France, look no further than Picardy.