On 26 March 1918, with the German spring offensive smashing through the British lines and threatening to split the Allied armies apart, French and British leaders met in the town hall of Doullens, a small town on the river Authie, north of Amiens. In a room on the first floor, they agreed to give the French general Ferdinand Foch the coordination of all Allied forces on the Western Front, a decision that many historians see as a turning point of the war. The room, now known as the Salle du Commandement Unique, can still be visited, with a stained glass window commemorating the meeting. The belfry of the old town hall, a solid tower from the late Middle Ages, is part of the UNESCO group of belfries of Belgium and France.
Doullens also has a large citadel, one of the biggest in the north of France, with massive walls and bastions built over centuries to guard the frontier. It sits on a hill above the town, and parts of it can be visited on guided tours.
The Authie valley is green and gentle, with meadows, woods and small villages, and the river is clear and full of trout. To the south lie the battlefields of the Somme, where in 1916 one of the bloodiest battles in history was fought. Memorials, cemeteries and museums are scattered across the landscape, including the Thiepval Memorial and the Newfoundland memorial park at Beaumont-Hamel, where the trenches are still visible in the grass.
The riding is gentle rather than exciting: rolling chalk plateaus with wide views, straight roads between villages and gentle curves in the valleys. Traffic is light, and the roads are generally in good condition, though farm vehicles and mud are common. Weather is changeable, with frequent rain and wind, and fog can settle in the valleys in the morning.
Doullens has around six thousand inhabitants, with fuel, shops and restaurants. Try a pâté de canard d'Amiens, a duck pâté baked in pastry, or a ficelle picarde, and look out for macarons d'Amiens, soft almond biscuits, for later. A visit to the town hall room, followed by a ride south to the Somme battlefields, makes a moving day.