Saturday 16 August 2008

The Definition of Chaleur

Those of you who have followed my previous wanderings through France know that I rather like Burgundy and am less than enamoured of Champagne. Here, in one day (yesterday, actually) is the perfect illustration why.

Yesterday morning, I left Langres, in Champagne, where I had been staying in a little hotel in the Citadel. My bill was somewhat more exorbitant than I usually tolerate, but after 230km in two days, I had refused to go back down the ridiculously steep hill to find somewhere cheap. Anyway, I was appalled to note that, for the first time in 6000+ km; the first time in France, as a matter of fact, I had been charged a whopping 8E to put my bike - yes, my bike - against a wall in their closed courtyard. Naturally, (because I can be really quite stroppy, you know), I protested. The lady kindly agreed to cut the bill in half. Oh, so only been ripped off to the tune of 4E then. Great. Welcome to Champagne.

An hour later, I crossed the watershed of the Marne. I know it sounds fanciful but something happens here. I noticed it before, when I went to Cluny and crossed into the Maconnais. The sky seems higher, the light more glassy and brilliant. The silhouettes of buildings seem sharper, as if they had been outlined in ink. And for the first time this trip, the sun shone with southern intensity rather than weakly through grizzling or threatening skies.

Oh, it was gorgeous. I wish you could all have been there, because it was the perfect illustration of why I do these trips. I cycled through wide pastures, once again grazed by lumbering white cattle, and passed in and out of scented forests, which encircled the low hills. There were grating crickets and dancing butterflies and buzzards soared the thermals, their high pitched mews rendering a ravishing solitude to this corner of France. I was back in the paradise of small things: the fields of gold sunflowers their faces turned southwards and strips of ripening corn. Then I noticed that there were no longer spires in the tiny villages, but strange little bell-shaped clochers tiled in coloured and glazed patterns - the toits bourguigone. I had, at last, crossed into the former Free County of Burgundy; once part of the Holy Roman Empire and latterly, Spain.

After days of comparitive isolation in the wheat fields and vineyards, suddenly there were waving tractor drivers and cars tooting their horns. I arrived in Gray and asked someone for help finding my chambre d'hote and they whipped out their iphone equivalent and spent 15 minutes trying to help me out. When that didn't work, he went to ask in a cafe and between us we found a plan of the town. So Benoit (for that is his name) proceeded to copy a little map of where I needed to go. And thus, after and exchange of photos; the obligatory 'Bon continuation', I cycled off to the Rue de Hussards.

Now, since I found my chambre d'hote (which was, incidentally, gorgeous) you might think that the story ends there. But, you reckon without knowing the Comtois idea of chaleur. Who should pop around a couple of hours later but Benoit, to give me the photo he had taken of me for my blog. Amazing. As I said before: what a country and what a people. I will never grow tired of being in France.

To cap it all, I then spent a fantastic evening with mine hosts, Eric and Benedictine. I was forced (well, not much force involved actually) to sample various wines of the region: a great white from the Jura; another fabulous blanc sec from Savoie and a truly epic Cotes de Beaune red. We had a four course meal for 10E (the wine alone must have cost more), and chatted into the night about the problems of the French economy, why Nikolas Sarkozy has a Napoleon complex, and where I might stay in the next stages of my route. Not content with simply giving me ideas, my hosts even called somewhere to check availability in Besancon. I thought nothing could equal the chaleur of Patrick and the marchands of Semur en Auxois, but it seems I had reckoned without Burgundy's imperial sister over the Saone. Nothing, it seems is too much trouble for the Comtois. No wonder the Flemish say that to eat well; drink well and laugh a lot is to live like a Burgundian. I simply love it here.

Wednesday 13 August 2008

The Beautiful South

What a day! An amazing race south through Haute Marne, following a fantasitc piste cyclable along the canal. The poor souls in their cars were ploughing up hill and down dale and I was pacing along, watching the landscape change. Champagne's low rising plains and empty stubble fields retreated and green hills began to rise from slopes of bright green pasture. The tops were clad with pocket woodland and suddenly there was bird song, and the small day to day delights/ the lonely cries of honey buzzards circling and the grate of crickets as the day waxed into full summertime. Somewhere beyond Chaunmont (I am now in Langres) the Marne began to tuirn from a thick sluggish green brown vein to a gushing brook, cascading over weirs and half hidden in thickets of willow and briar rose. It was utterly enchanting, and even better for being more or less effortless. I could enjoy the changing landscape, secure in the knowledge I was not - yet - going to have to climb those lush green hills or meandering through the winding valleys.

The landscape is definitely changing, my friends. I bought new maps today and my, they are getting scary. It is no longer very easy to find a good route: all those rivers I have been happily following are now reaching their sources and, in fact tomorrow I will cross an important watershed: the plateau of Langres if in fact the point at which the rivers no longer flow towards the Channel or the Atlantic, but towards the Mediterranean. Burgundy is just across the way and Franche Comte beckons. As do the Jura. What I find ,most worrying is that there don't appear to be any minor roads any more (at least not ones which don't look like varicose veins) and so I shall have to risk becoming roadkill at the same time as risking a coronary.

Yes, I find I am slightly dreading that first gulp-tastic view of the Alps. Not long away now, mes amies! I can almost here the yodelling from here.

a bientot

Vx

Tuesday 12 August 2008

A Tale of Two Cathedrals

I know that I am supposed to be en route to Italy and not meandering around mediaeval France anymore, but I hope you will allow me a little detour here and there for some cathedral wandering. Laon is amazing: early Gothic (12th century) and an influence on Chartres, Reims, Amiens...all of the others, really. It stands on the top of a hill and from a distance has something of the Bram Stoker / Whitby Abbey about it. Gaunt and faintly skeletal open towers looming over the southern plains, built in dark stone to make it even more, well, Gothic (in the romantic sense of the word). But inside it is stunning: very light and clean and airy. Apparently influenced by the Cistercians (those ascetic types who believed in a life of work as a route to God). I don't usually go for Cistercian stuff coz its just a bit too pure, joyless and austere for my tastes, but Laon is utterly harmonius. Also, despite the hoards outside, it was completely quiet so I got to sit and contemplate nothing very much at all, which is more or less my favourite pastime on these journeys.

Reims by contrast, was absolutely massive: monumental columns in a dark and narrow nave. No wonder the church was pleased to have this as the site of coronation for over 1000 years; since Clovis in the 7th century, I believe. I defy even the most vainglorious French Kings, (in what is a pretty long list), not to be humble before God in such an imposing place. But the rest of the town is pretty crappy: the war again, I'm afraid. Oh, and 1960s architecture.

Anyway, now, after a short sprint down the Marne, and a slightly longer slog over the rolling former wheat fields of Champagne (not all grapes, you know) I am on the borders of Lorraine: in Joinville. The birth place of the tiresome teenager Joan of Arc is just down the road, but after several up and down yomps across the grain of the land and 100+km of cycling, I have called it a day. I am holed up in a tiny hotel whose carpet is thinned and colourless with age but the bath is huge - a great deep iron footed job. It is also a place where my presence in this bar/tabac playing constant 80s music (the Police at the mo, in case you're intrested. Walking on the moon. Aha 'the sun always shines on TV when I came in, which as friends will understand; felt like fate after my long lasting school girl crush on Horton Market.) is beginning to occasion lots of remark. I envisage a jolly evening explaining what on earth I am doing to lots of incredulous old men in the bar of my hotel. Ah, the joys of long distance cycling. Still; tomorrow is going to be fun: following a piste cyclable all the way to Langres...then I will finally leave Champagne, which is definitely a Good Thing (or would be if I weren't entering the beginnings of the Jura). Must go. They are starting to play French music and there's only so much I of Jonny Halliday I can stand.

Cheers!

Vittoria (I met some Italian pilgrims also cycling this way and hence this is now my name)

The Glorious Dead

So, the east of France. After missing out much of this last time, I am surprised to find how very different it feels. The most obvious thing is that the war - well, wars - are everywhere. Not only in the "tombes" of the Commnwealth, which are quite honestly ubiquitous, but somehow in the slightly sombre mien of the place; the wind blown plateaux, the undefendable plains and the grizzling skies. I cannot imagine what it must be like to live here, amongst the constant reminders of the darkest aspects of the human soul; the flags and obilisks and the long lines of crosses and gravestones.

The Somme was beautiful but terrible. There was not one village without a cemetary of some kind, usually set back discretely from the road and marked with a black and white sign. I stopped once or twice, but there are too many to stop at them all, which felt terribly disrespectful. They are all so tidy and quiet and intensely moving in this raw and empty setting. Impossible not to cry, frankly, because there are just so many graves. Thousands. Then, at Bray sur Somme, there was the French flag and Union Jack flying by the roadside at the entrance to the town and in Laon cathedral (about which more to follow), a small sign on the wall: a thank you "to the million of the British Commonwealth who fell during the 1914-18 war. Most of whom remain in France." Incomprehensible loss. Very sobering.

Sunday 10 August 2008

In Remembrance of Times Past

So, back on the road, and still coming to terms with all the things one forgets: like the fact that the French; God bless them, use a keyboard where the A and the Q are mixed up and the M is located somewhere in the alternate universe that is the alt grnd key.

Other things: hills hurt. They really do. They hurt only marginally less now than four days ago, when I set off with Brother Dan from Calais, heading for Rome. But I am slowly getting used to the screaming thighs and inching up with gritted teeth. Oh, and the getting back on the bike after a short break....,mmm, did my bum hurt that much last time? It seems that long distance cycling is like childbirth, one forgets the bad bits as soon as it is over.

It was a bit odd, beginning again, if I am honest. France wonderful but familiar, and my mission, to get through it as fast as possible to Italy, rather different than that of two years ago. But nonetheless, this lovely country never disappoints. It was typical Flanders stuff: canals and sweeping views and untroubled calm. So many fishermen, sitting by the water and staring at nothing very much at all. Coming to France is an instant slow down. Stress just melts away.

But the real gem was Ardres. It had a cobbled square overlooked by a big white church, and the usual French post-lunch hub-bub of the daily shop. We went into the T.O to find accomodation and ended up having our photos taken for the notice board, because we were pilgrims. Then had a bargain chambre d'hote in the middle of nowhere and a pilgrim meal of home grown veg and local pork for 10 E.

The next day was memorable for wholly different reasons: firstly being woken repeatedly by the most monumental storm. Then, for chasing around the fringe of another storm, heading south from the ole Chausee Brunehaut in Artois (found out Brunehaut was a Gauloise Queen, in case anyone is interested).

At first, leaving an unremarkable agricultural village called Tincques, it looked like we might make it. Unfortunately, we were half way onto a wide open agricultural plateau when it became obvious that we wouldn't. The sky was biblical and the thunder coming in unholy rumbles and cracks with terrifying frequency. We told ourselves there was only a bit of cloud to cloud lightening to worry about, but the thick shaft of fork lightning sundering the rise just ahead of us soon persuaded us otherwise. The trouble was, there was nothing but us on this plateau and apart from two piles of gravel by the side of the road, we were the highest things around. So we did the only thing we could: got off, dumped the bikes by the gravel and ran to lie in the hay a few metres away as the storm passed right overhead. I can vaguely remember saying to Dan that I didn't want to die. I remember, too, thinking of those stupid puzzles - you know: a piece of cloth, a box and a dead man found in a field - and wondering vaguely if someone would find us like that later, only a little more deep fried. But eventually, the rain hurled down slightly less aggressively, the sky rumbled more to itself than directly overhead, and we made a run for it back to Tincques.

We sat out the second set of squalls in a bar tabac; started again only to make about 100 metres when the sky opened once again and the lightning sliced the sky on our route, so retreated to the petrol station cafe/hotel: Eventually, I called the tourist office in Arras and explained we were stuck by the Armaggeddon going on outside, and they found us an amazing ferme chateau. Unfortunately, it turned out to be in Penin - just up the road we had been trying to cycle up for the last two hours which was the centre of the Mordor-esque son et lumiere going on outside.

Once the rain slackened slightly and there hadn't been lightning for - oh; ten minutes or so - we sprinted back up that damn plateau, still in the hurling rain. As we did so, a chap in a battered red Renault drew alongside and asked if we had somewhere to stay. Then another chap in a battered beige Citroen 'trott trott' asked us if we were heading to Penin. It turned out he was from our ferme chateau and had come out in his van looking for us! What a country! What a people.

Have to go now; but will fill you in on the route to Laon and Reims next time.

A bientot, mes amies!