Visit Beauvais

La Maladrerie Saint-Lazare is a former hospital for people with leprosy. Now restored, it brings together two worlds that are inextricably linked: the Medieval, complete with a chapel and a barn with wooden beams some 12 metres high, and contemporary gardens that are an oasis of calm. Take a moment to meditate here among the neatly organised squares of aromatic herbs, cereals, berries, vines and vegetables. Look out in particular for the gardens known as “Marie” or “Cloître” – there is lots here to inspire you.

Visit in July and August to take a Manufacture Nationale de la Tapisserie guided tour and be amazed by the weavers keeping alive traditional techniques made famous by manufacturers like Gobelins and Aubusson. As in the 17th and 18th centuries when artists Charles Lebrun and François Boucher were so prevalent, the designs of the modern tapestries are by some of the big-name contemporary artists of the 21st century. Find time, too, to return to the town hall, where you’ll be spellbound by the huge Matisse tapestry.

Only 10 minutes by car from Beauvais, Saint-Paul invites you to enter the poetic and artistic world of painter André Van Beek. The artist, whose work is inspired by the post-Impressionist movement, opens his garden to you. Year after year he enriches the garden further, transforming it like a painting that’s in perpetual motion. Like an open-air work, the garden offers a palette of colours that will captivate you in the same way they inspire the artist. Dahlias, hydrangeas, remarkable trees and ponds lined with water lilies accompany you throughout your walk around the garden. Each view is like a painting revealed before your eyes. You’ll continue to enjoy an array of colour when you push open the doors of van Beek’s studio.