Beauvais
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Beauvais

Beauvais

Picardy city near Paris, dominated by an unfinished Gothic cathedral of startling height.

Most visitors arrive in Beauvais by budget airline and leave on the next bus to Paris, never quite intending to stop. That's a mistake. The city has one genuinely extraordinary thing — the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre de Beauvais — and it is among the most remarkable buildings in France.

The cathedral was the most audacious architectural gamble of the Gothic age. When construction began in earnest in 1225, the builders aimed to raise the tallest church in Christendom. The choir, completed in 1272, reached 48.5 metres at the vault — still the highest Gothic choir ever built. Then in 1284, the choir vaulting partially collapsed. The builders reinforced it and tried again, adding extra piers and flying buttresses that now crowd around the exterior like a forest of stone. Progress stalled, money dried up, and the nave was never begun. What stands today is a transept, a choir, and an apse — a great church missing its body. The visual effect, when you step inside, is vertiginous: all that height with no counterbalancing length, the proportions of a skyscraper compressed into something that fits your eye all at once. Go on a sunny morning when the light comes through the south transept rose window.

Beyond the cathedral, Beauvais is a pleasant small city in the former Picardy region, prefecture of the Oise department. The medieval quarter around the cathedral survived the devastating German bombing of June 1940, and those streets — the Place Jeanne Hachette, the old Bishop's Palace now housing the Departmental Museum — still read as a pre-war French town. The rest of the city centre is postwar reconstruction, functional but unremarkable. Beauvais has a long tradition in tapestry-making: the Manufacture Royale de Beauvais, founded by Louis XIV in 1664, rivalled the Gobelins in Paris for three centuries. Textiles remain part of the local identity, though the manufacture itself no longer operates in the city.

The Saturday market in and around the Place Jeanne Hachette fills the square with stalls and gives the city its most animated face. If you have a few hours between your Ryanair flight and the Paris bus, the cathedral alone justifies walking up from the station — and there is usually time for lunch too.

Guide

Bars and Cafes

The café life in Beauvais is centred on the Place Jeanne Hachette, where several terraces fill on weekday lunchtimes and Saturday mornings when the market is running. The square itself is pleasant, overlooked by the statue of Jeanne Hachette and flanked by the Hôtel de Ville. Evenings are quieter — this is a working city, not a tourist town, and nightlife is limited.

For a coffee before or after the cathedral, the cafés along the Rue de l'Étape and the streets immediately south of the cathedral square are the most convenient. Nothing here demands a special journey, but the basics — a good espresso, a glass of Normandy cider — are reliably done.

Guide

Eating Out

Beauvais is not a destination for food, but it has enough good options around the cathedral and Place Jeanne Hachette to eat well between sights. The city's proximity to the Picardy farmland and the Oise valley means local markets supply fresh produce year-round; the Saturday market on Place Jeanne Hachette is the best place to graze if you're passing through.

Traditional northern French cooking dominates — brasserie staples, moules, steak-frites, and the occasional Picard speciality such as ficelle picarde (a crêpe filled with ham and mushrooms, baked in cream). The streets immediately south and east of the cathedral have a cluster of brasseries and casual restaurants well-suited to a lunch stop.

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Getting Around

The historic centre of Beauvais is compact and almost entirely walkable. From the train station to the cathedral is about 15 minutes on foot, through a straightforward grid of postwar streets. All the main sights — the cathedral, the Basse Oeuvre, the Galerie Nationale de la Tapisserie, the Musée Départemental de l'Oise, and the Place Jeanne Hachette — are within a five-minute walk of each other.

Local buses (the Corolis network) cover the wider city and suburbs, but visitors to the historic centre will rarely need them. Taxis are available from the station rank and can be called for the airport transfer, though pre-booking is advisable for early-morning flights.

Cycling infrastructure in the city centre is modest. The flat terrain between the station and cathedral makes walking the obvious choice for short stays.

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Getting There

By air. Beauvais-Tillé Airport (BVA), branded as Paris–Beauvais, is 3.5 km northeast of the city centre in the commune of Tillé. Ryanair uses it as its main Paris hub and flies from dozens of European cities. Shuttle buses connect the airport to Paris Porte Maillot (about 75 minutes, tickets sold at the airport); a separate shuttle connects to Beauvais city centre (around 10 minutes). Do not count on catching a flight the same morning you arrive by train from Paris — the connection takes more time than budget airlines' check-in windows allow.

By train. Beauvais station sits on the Paris–Creil–Amiens line. Direct Intercités trains run from Paris Gare du Nord roughly hourly; the journey takes about 1 hour 15 minutes. The station is 1 km southeast of the cathedral — a flat, straightforward walk.

By bus. Flixbus and regional coaches serve Beauvais from Paris and Amiens. The main bus drop-off is near the station or Place Jeanne Hachette depending on the operator.

By car. Beauvais is 80 km north of Paris via the A16 motorway, about an hour without traffic. Parking is available on the ring road around the old centre; the streets immediately around the cathedral are narrow and parking is limited.

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Things to Do

Beauvais rewards visitors who focus on the historic core around the cathedral. The quarter within a few minutes' walk of the Cathédrale Saint-Pierre contains most of the city's worthwhile sights: the cathedral itself, the adjacent Basse Oeuvre (an early medieval church preserved inside the cathedral precinct), the astronomical clock, the Bishop's Palace housing the Departmental Museum, and the Square Jeanne Hachette with its famous statue. For tapestry enthusiasts, the Galerie Nationale de la Tapisserie sits immediately south of the cathedral.