A pleasant and prosperous industrial centre, ST-QUENTIN is a convenient place to pause on the way south, but makes no great demands on your time.The central place de l'Hôtel de Ville is now completely closed to traffic, and its north side is dominated by a particularly good-looking, arcaded, late-Gothic Hôtel de Ville, whose bells ring protracted, syncopated changes every quarter-hour. To the east, rue St-André leads to the town's skyscrapingly massive but outwardly rather uninspiring Gothic basilique. Inside, its main virtue is its sheer size. In fact, it's a miracle that it is still standing at all, since the retreating Germans mined all 300 pillars in 1918 and were only prevented from setting the explosives off by lack of time – you can still see the marks left by the mines. Another curiosity is the maze in the paving of the nave, designed for penitents to figure out on their knees. Of much greater interest is the Musée Antoine-Lécuyer on rue Lécuyer, at the end of rue Raspail (Mon & Wed–Fri 10am–noon & 2–5pm, Sat 10am–noon & 2–6pm, Sun 2–6pm; closed Tues & public hols; €2.50, Wed free), which contains a big collection of pastel portraits of the leading politicians, nobles, artists and socialites of eighteenth-century France by locally born Maurice-Quentin de Latour. The town's other interesting collection, said to be one of the largest in the world, is that of more than half a million butterflies and other insects, housed in the Musée d'Entomologie, at 14 rue de la Sellerie, just off the main square (Mon & Wed–Sat 2–6pm, Sun 3–6pm; €2.50). To get to the centre of town from the gare SNCF, follow rue Général-Leclerc over the Somme, and up rue d'Isle. The tourist office is at 27 rue V. Basch, just off the main square (Mon–Fri 8am–12.30pm & 1.30–6pm, Sat 9am–noon & 2–6pm, Sun 2.30–5.30pm; tel 03.23.67.05.00). For accommodation, try the basic Hôtel du Départ, place du Monument-aux-Morts (tel 03.23.62.31.69; under €30), just to the right as you come out of the station, or one of two clean, decent hotels off the main square in the centre of town: Le Florence, 42 rue Zola (tel 03.23.64.22.22, fax 03.23.62.52.85; under €30), which has a restaurant (from €15; closed Mon lunch & Sun), and the Hôtel de la Paix et Albert I, 3 place du 8-Octobre (tel 03.23.62.77.62; €40–55), on the road between the train station and the town centre. The town's campsite is on boulevard Jean-Bouin (tel 03.23.62.68.66; closed Dec–Feb), 2km from the station by the river – take any bus to the Basilica then bus #4 to the piscine municipale; the hostel (tel 03.23.62.68.66; closed Dec–Feb) is next door.
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