Before ascending the mountain – went to the torrent (7 in the morning) again – the Sun upon it
Byron’s Alpine Journey, September 18th-29th, 1816
An invigorating morning today. It started with the discovery of our clean, folded laundry outside our bedroom door. The miracle of Aigle! Yolanda is an absolute saint. Clean and sweet-smelling, we devoured a terrific walking breakfast of bircher muesli and yoghurt, and fabulous dark brown rye bread from the local bakery, wolfed down with slathers of unsalted butter and Philippe’s own apricot jam. We discussed the local production of apricots over breakfast, together with the habits of the swallows, clouds of which were feeding in the humid air above the streets. Yolanda showed us where they nested, in boxes constructed by local children and fixed in the eves of the farmhouse next door.
Aigle is just a lovely town, very livable. Ordinary old houses, with ordinary people going about their day.
The Tour de France had come through (is that ordinary? Perhaps not), commemorated by a statue of a bike. Bunting was still up; very festive.
The edge of the town blurred into the country, in the form of various clos and domaines. Green striations covered the slopes around us as we toiled up to the château,
catching our breath in the square outside.
Up past the castle there were miles of vineyards. The century-old Domaine of Badoux has a lizard for its branding, and across the valley the Badoux lizard has been picked out in white stones snaking between the green patches of vines.
As directed by Yolanda we turned at the first bend in the road and looked back at the château. There it was, amongst the vineyards in a spectacular landscape of mountain and sky.
And there was Yolanda also! Coming up behind us with her church walking group. They were on silent meditation but she grinned at us and put a finger to her lips. Farewell Yolanda, dispenser of routing advice, local information, book choices, homeopathic remedies and cooling gels for insect bites, and most important of all —clean underwear. Enjoy your peace.
For the next few kilometres, we climbed. But now the path moved into cool forest reserves above the glacial valley where the Rhône river has flattened the valley floor with alluvial deposits over the millennia. For the first time since we started we were properly off paved roads and paths and onto an excellent forest track, climbing up through pines and deciduous forest, sometimes rooty underfoot,
and sometimes rocky.
We climbed 250 m straight out of the box, and I was conscious of burning calves and having to use my poles to haul myself up. I have to say I made VERY HEAVY WEATHER OF IT and this does not bode well for the days to come.
I reached the top in a soup of sweat (oh Yolanda! Your beautiful laundry!) but my moaning was instantly quelled by the astonishing view out over the plain to the mountain ranges to the south.
And the sun had come up just enough to fill the winding forest path upliftingly with sun ahead of us.
The little town of Ollon nestled in the arms of vine-covered lower slopes,
and as we descended the steep ridged concrete road of the vignerons, butterflies fluttering alongside,
we were internally doing our own sun salutations to match that of a contented Bengal cat
and the fat bunches of grapes hanging between us and the sun’s warmth.
Ollan is the ‘town of water fountains’, and coming down the short path into the centre ville we encountered several, as well as the municipal worker with a water bowser on the back of his mini truck, cheerfully watering and deadheading the baskets of trailing geraniums.
The town was full of old houses with picturesquely peeling shutters and doors (prompting me to wonder why it is that the peeling wood on our house at home just looks rubbish).
Sigh. It was all so beautiful that we decided to double down on our sense of well-being and repair to the Fontaine café to watch the world go by.
And watch in admiration one local already on his second glass of rosé. Good choice for elevenses, I thought, nodding sagely in Miyagesque manner. Two espressos were ordered by us, and two pastel de natas — because, like the mountains, they were there.
Halfway up the second climb of the day, the newly-caffeinated Stephen had actually to run up the steep vineyard track to outpace a Peugeot that was coming up behind him. Out sprang João and his fellow worker, keen to know what we were up to. He had never met any pilgrims before, and was a little bemused to hear we were walking to Rome. We were also keen to know what he was up to: about to go and harvest some Pinot blanc grapes, as it happened. I asked him whether I could take a photograph for the blog, and he raked his fingers through his hair like a matinee idol and posed with his secateurs.
We discussed the vendange. When I promised we wouldn’t eat any grapes, João’s companion said that since we were pilgrims, we could eat as many as we liked!
After letting Stephen recover from his run (on the pretext of having the jolly chat with the locals), we continued onwards and upwards. The views were expanding now and it was such an exhilarating walk that having a go on the tyre swing hanging slap bang in the centre of the path just seemed the right thing to do.
The open pastureland and small hamlet at the top of the hill contained quite a bit of interest. Firstly, the obvious signs of sanglier rooting activity — which did not concern me because this was nearly autumn and the piglets would be fairly grown by now and their mothers very relaxed.
Then I spotted a patch of autumn crocus — wild colchicums — about which I was super-excited. Stephen not so much.
And my eye was also caught by a flash of bright red; not, as I had thought, a butterfly, but rather an Italian locust (really a kind of grasshopper, known since 1758 by the Linnaean binomial taxonomic nomenclature as Calliptamus italicus).
Later on, I was startled by another leaping cricket, this time with bright blue underwings — Oedipoda caerulescens. (Reader, I am all about taxonomy. Oscar has made an app which is a much better version of MetaZoo where you guess mystery animals to create a cladistic Tree of Life. Find it here: Tree of Life)
Down we came off the hill, through the vines,
and fell in with a Spanish family of four walking to Aosta. I was very grateful that Maica paused by a crumbling farmhouse with a stand of sunflowers turning their heads to the east, and allowed me to photograph the instructions for arrival from the Abbey where we are all to stay tonight, because mine for some reason hadn’t been attached to the welcome email.
We were walking a little faster than them so soon parted, and we enjoyed our first proper river walk alongside la Gryonne, a canalised and cascading tributary of the Rhône down which a pair of dippers tag-teamed. I had looked them up once, and had been amazed to learn that they have solid rather than hollow bones like most other birds, and their claws are extra long, the better to withstand flowing water and grip onto the underwater rocks.
The unassuming track along the river is the so-called ‘Salt Path’, running a couple of kilometres up to (or rather down from) the salt mines in Bex. The huge salt deposits originated from the evaporation of the ancient Tethys Sea which covered the area over 200 million years ago. Salt layers were eventually trapped under rock during the formation of the Alps. Salty springs were discovered in the 15th century and mining began a century later and has been in continuous operation since — the oldest Swiss salt mine still active.
The tributary finally reached the rushing waters of the Rhône, a surprising eau-de-nil colour created by the suspension of fine particles of minerals and sediment washed out from glacial meltwater and reflecting the light — a sun salutation in its own way.
It was fast and direct walking from here, but fairly brutally hot. I thought the river water looked inviting and would have loved to have cooled my feet in it, but the banks were too steep.
Reader, you must not worry about the heat. We are both feeling in tremendous condition: feet, knees, muscles and energy levels are (so far) good. Although perhaps I am making hay while the sun shines, because the first three stages have had a few hundred metres of climb at most, and the day after tomorrow there’s almost a thousand metres of climb in 18km. I would like to ask Jane Smith whether this is ‘well within my capabilities’ — but we shall see!
We found a bench in the shade for a lunch stop in a little village, just past a palisade of characterful primary school children.
I drenched my cotton headband in water from the fountain and took off my shoes. I was somewhat alarmed at the smell (I had showered! These socks were clean!) until I realised that the source was the slightly sweaty cheese for the rolls that Stephen was cutting, and not ME.
All the pilgrims on the road were converging. Separately, in various places around the village, there was a young guy with a pilgrim tattoo, on some steps in the shade, a man with scallop shell on his pack under the shade of a cafe umbrella, drinking a beer. We’d passed Canadian pilgrims Carol and Dan sometime earlier having their lunch on a bench by the river in the sun.
The few kilometres left to go followed the railway line. It was another hot, flat tarmac road, with lizards darting their way to safety amongst the rustling feed maize drying out in the fields alongside. Tractors full of harvested maize were passing, dropping some of the chopped up crop on their way.
We made it to St Maurice in excellent time. Space for the road and rail is carved out of massive rockfaces, the road snaking around but poor pilgrims having to walk underneath steel nets to protect us from falling boulders.
I suppose we could have ducked into one of the vault-like unnerving caves, but we might never have got out again, and in any case were eager to get to the Abbey.
Only to find that they had no trace of our reservation — the form hadn’t been processed properly, although I could see in the email trail that I had filled it out. Thank heavens I had paid with cash in the Co-op this morning, and the cashier had given me a 5-centime piece as change: she must have seen on my face that I thought taking the tiny coin was a waste of time, because ‘It brings good luck!’ she said. And it did: there were two single rooms left, which we took, and now the Abbey was full for the night.
Stats for the Day
Distance: 19km
Happiness: 100%