Half an hour by train, or 30km down the N2, southwest of Laon, SOISSONS can lay claim to a long and highly strategic history. Before the Romans arrived it was already a town, and in 486 AD it was here that the last Roman ruler, Syagrius, suffered a decisive defeat at the hands of Clovis the Frank, making Soissons one of the first real centres of the Frankish kingdom. Napoléon, too, considered it a crucial military base, a judgement borne out in the 20th century by extensive war damage. The town boasts the fine, if little-sung, Cathédrale Notre-Dame – thirteenth century for the most part with majestic … more »