Dry Champagne

What dreadful hot weather we have! It keeps one in a continual state of inelegance.

Jane Austen

The glory of last night’s supper cannot really be overstated. First came the aperitif with which I finished yesterday‘s blog, and then David Colombier outdid himself with a fragrant, thick and creamy courgette, carrot and leek soup. That was followed by roast chicken with lime and a little bit of brown sugar to cut through the acidity, served on couscous with plump sultanas and a zingy jus. Finally, a light-as-a-feather chocolate mousse with a mirabelle plum digestif which David’s father had made in the 1980s.  Whilst aquavit is not really my bag, it did smell delicious.

After all that I slept (unsurprisingly) tremendously well, and woke to another vision of wonder: David’s breakfast, with home-made waffles and a tiny pot of Nutella, home-made baguette (!) with a trio of home-made jams, fig, mirabelle and rhubarb and vanilla. There was delicious coffee, orange juice, and yoghurt, and I’m not ashamed to say that after yesterday’s breakfast of a crunchie bar and water, I immoderately wolfed down the lot. It was all the more delicious for being eaten outside at the table with the sun just starting to warm the garden.

My first visitor though was a swallow! It flew in the open patio door, and I had no more time than to emit a startled ‘OH!’ before it flapped its ungainly way back out of the door. David’s dog however stayed a little bit longer, and was very interested in my six-day-old outfit of smelly T-shirt and trousers. I got the message. It would be the first thing to address this afternoon at the pilgrim accommodation in Brienne-le-Chateau.

David told me that the sun was forecast to be very strong today, with a temperature of 25°, hotter in the sun. I could absolutely see that already: there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. I set off at about 9.30, partly since it was difficult to tear myself away, and partly because I could afford to: I had planned a fiendish shortcut after my long day yesterday and in view of the heat. It would retain today’s highlight of the stained glass in the church at Rosnay de l’Hôpital (I had my fingers crossed it would be open) but cut out what looked to me to be otherwise an featureless and pointless scribble of a route on the map.  A country road would take me straight to the days’s end, cutting off at least 10 km, maybe more.

Straight out of the door, there was a stiff climb up on top of the hill behind Montmorency. This is something that my walking friend Jane has frequently commented upon: the discomfort of a steep climb after a steep breakfast.

I took it steady, and it was a good way to stretch my calf muscles.

The view from the top made the whole climb worth it: an almost 360° panorama over vast, flat distances, beyond the woodlands I walked through yesterday to the farmlands way beyond.

The route followed the ridgeline for a bit before dipping slightly below, with one significant turn that you had to watch out for by examining each lonely tree for the tell-tale red and white GR markings. By now they felt like old friends.

The sun beat down from the cloudless sky and I felt quite exposed — and very glad I was planning on cutting short the day. I covered my head and made sure to take enough water on board.

This was the Dry Champagne region — the third of the geological aspects of this area.  Yesterday’s route crossed country which was too wet to grow grapes, and today’s was the opposite. It was obvious that the landscape was still chalky and sandy, but perhaps without the marl layer underneath which kept the drained rainwater within reach of a vineyard’s root systems.

The Francigena route zigzagged around field edges in a frustrating way — I kept seeing shady avenues of trees which the path swerved away from at the last moment to keep me walking in the full sun.  It was as though the trees were a mirage.

Finally the route took me into a brief bit of shade and I could unscrew my eyes and stop a bit.

Rosnay l’Hôpital was just a field length away. There was a strange tower on a sandstone outcrop in a garden, with a hidden door carved into the rock. What would you keep in a room carved into the rock?  Your wine cellar?  I would.

I realised later it might have been in the gardens of the grand house I later passed on my way out of town.  It was the sort of folly you would expect in the gardens of a house located on the small chateau point on the scale.

The rest of the town was shabby and dusty,

but filled with little surprises such as red poppies sprouted from seeds that had germinated in the moss and crevices of a dry wall,

and on the sides of one house, the beech shingles that had been a feature of yesterday’s churches but which had been too high to see properly.

But the real thrill of the day was the extraordinary church of Notre Dame of the Assumption.

It is really two churches, the upper one of which I visited first. Dating from 1561, it would be light and airy were it not so full of dust.

Everything about it feels ancient, an effect increased by the tomb slabs now displayed on the back wall of the church (with decades-old French translations in a spidery hand, in little framed panels next to them).

The windows are full of contemporary stained glass,

showing 16th century faces in 16th century clothing,

and landscapes behind the figures which echoed the chalky soils and woods I had been myself traversing.

The glass still cast brightly-coloured light onto the floor even after five hundred years.

Looking up at the vaulted ceiling I saw gazing down at me the dove of peace in a single painted boss.

The lower church is much older, and is accessed from an exterior stone staircase. It is a crypt dating from 1035, almost a thousand years old. It was consecrated to St Stephen by St Thomas à Becket, the English martyr, the site of whose murder I had seen in Canterbury Cathedral on the day I set out on this pilgrimage, and I felt a powerful connection — a stronger one here perhaps, in such a naked but austere space; one that felt far more medieval in many ways than the cathedral at Canterbury where the accretions of a thousand years stand between us and him.

I made my way down a back road and out of this extraordinary little place, and just after the town boundary I heard yet another really thrilling bird: the golden oriole.  It really is exceptionally golden: about the size of a blackbird or a jay and bright golden yellow.  I didn’t see it, but it was glowing to itself somewhere in the thicket to the side of the road.

The road continued to be dusty and hot, an impression increased by the proximity of a sand quarry with large lorryloads going back and forth.

I found some (literally) blessed shelter in the covered porch of a church and collapsed on the bench to eat a crunchie bar and some nuts, and watch a wasp case the joint for some suitable wood to chew into pulp.

There was also several carpenter bees, which are excitingly large, black and sometimes blue.  As the name suggests, they nest in wood, and I’ve seen quite a few of them over the last few days, actively looking for suitable nesting sites. So far I haven’t managed to photograph any, but here’s one I saw last year in the Gers region, south of Toulouse.

Having recovered somewhat, I shouldered my pack again and set off, past a ‘choucrouterie’, which googling informs me is a place where they might be making industrial quantities of sauerkraut, but they are also growing it too, as these gazillions of seedlings needing planting out (by hand in the sun) seemed to attest.

I yearningly passed a tree on the other side of the road with a shady bench and a table and chairs,

and even more yearningly, a series of fishing lakes behind high wire fences with invisible signs on saying ‘keep out stinky pilgrims — these cool waters are not for you’.

By then I was practically on the outskirts of Brienne-le-Chateau, dwarfed by a colossal flour mill.  As I passed it seemed to me that the enormous structure resembled one of the wooden churches I had passed yesterday, an impression which only increased when I saw the different heights of the roofs on the wings at the sides.

The eponymous chateau of Brienne gleamed in the distance at the end of a wide boulevard.  Perhaps there would be time to find out more about it tomorrow.

In the meantime, I arrived at the door of the Fraternal House for Pilgrims, where I ran out of water.  A perfectly timed end to the day’s walk!

Stats for the Day

Distance: 18km

Time: 3 hrs 40 — plus a stop in every patch of shade

Pace: my standard 4.8 km/ h despite the sun

*General Apology*

This blog is very late being posted, and I am sorry for those who like to read it over the breakfast muffins and coffee. Sadly most of my time today was taken up with efforts to find forward accommodation.

But better late than never!