Oltre che un senso spirituale, il Cammino di Santiago ha un fascino storico molto forte: è un ripercorrere i passi di migliaia di persone che hanno costruito con il loro muoversi le radici dell'Europa.
(In addition to its spiritual meaning, the Camino di Santiago has a very strong historical significance: you walk in the footsteps of the thousands of people whose movement built the roots of Europe.)
- Sara Zanni, Cento giorni in cammino (2020)
In no hurry to leave my cosy flat at Les Voûtes de Chambon, I made myself a cup of instant coffee and two pancakes, from a sample package of high-protein pancake mix I had picked up in a pharmacy in Italy, which I ate with dried apricots and a syrup improvised from cane sugar (available at my accommodation) and a packet of powdered lemon juice (given to me some time ago by a Korean friend) blended with a little hot water. It worked! After breakfast, I finished the Tintin comic I had fallen asleep reading the night before, washed and put away the dishes, then cleaned my boots and treated them with H12, a waterproofing and leather treatment product from Scarpa. I finally packed up and left the flat, coming to the church of Champcella just as the bells rang nine o'clock.
In Champcella I passed by Gîte d'étape La Bergèrie, an accommodation run by a Dutch couple that is specifically intended for walkers and cyclists, where I would have stayed if it hadn't been closed! My second option was La Dormilhosa in Pallon, but it was also closed for the season, which is why I contacted Les Voûtes de Chambon even though it looked way too big for me - and way too nice for a pilgrim stopover! 😅 Luckily the family was at home and agreed to accommodate me: the schools in France are closed this week, and many families are away on holiday.
Coming out of Champcella, I followed the GR trail as it descended into the valley of the Durance, crossed the river and continued on the other side. The trail is marked, but not at every single point where one might have doubts, and in fact I went the wrong way a few times before checking my GPS track and realising. Sometimes I had missed a trail marker, other times there had been none, and I tended to carry on along the road straight ahead, missing paths off to the side.
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| Crossing the Durance |
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| The forest-fire damaged area I walked through 24 hours ago seems so far away now! |
I looked around the medieval village of Saint-Crépin, where everything was shut: café, pâtisserie, église, mairie, école.... tout! So I continued on my way out of the village, following the red and white trail markers - for the wrong GR! 🤦♀️
France's long-distance walking trails, known as GR (pronounced zhee-erre) for Grand Randonnée, are all marked with the same red and white trail markers. The trail numbers are only posted at the exact spot where two trails intersect (as in the picture above). If you wander away from your designated route to explore a village, and then follow the red and white markings out of the town, you may be in danger of ending up on the wrong GR!
Again it was only when I checked my GPS track that I realised I was on the wrong trail and turned back. I wonder where the GR541 would have taken me? Not to Compostelle.
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| Back on the right track! |
The trail markers for the GR 653D after Saint-Crépin are helpfully adorned with coquilles Saint-Jacques, so there can be no going wrong!
Not far south of Saint-Crépin, the Durance valley curves almost 90 degrees; I have been heading southeast so far, but tomorrow I will be heading southwest. Where the valley widens out in the elbow of this curve, several rivers converge, and the village of Eygliers overlooks the fortifications of Mont-Dauphin and the larger town of Guillestre below.
I sat and ate my baguette with leftover anchovies and salad in a grassy spot with a sweeping view to the southwest, towards Châteauroux-les-Alpes, where I will be staying tomorrow night. Then I walked through the pretty little village of Eygliers, and, upon leaving the town, was amazed to find myself on a footpath at the top of a cliff, looking down into the chasm below: the Gorges du Guil.
The photographs do not do it justice, as the far side of the canyon was in shadow. I could see a very high waterfall cascading off the opposite cliff, and hoodoo formations on the near side if the canyon, just below me.
Still gazing in awe at the view, I followed the footpath along the clifftop to Mont-Dauphin, a fortress built by Vauban beginning in 1693 to defend the valleys of the Durance and Guil rivers. It is now part of a Unesco World Heritage Site encompassing many of Vauban's fortifications - including Briançon.
During this gap between the summer and winter tourist seasons, renovation work was under way, and in fact the main entrance to the fortress was closed. I had to walk all the way around the outside of the fortifications and enter from the southern end. Under the hot sun, the fortress seemed impenetrable indeed!
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| Mont-Dauphin seen from above (courtesy of Wikipedia) |
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| The Officers' Quarters and main gatehouse |
Inside the fortress is an incongruously colourful French village: buildings that were once military barracks are now homes, shops, cafés and artisans' boutiques. Nearly all of which were - guess what? - closed: even the Officers' Quarters, now converted into a hotel; if it were open, it would have been fun to stay there!
Leaving Mont-Dauphin by the Embrun gate, I had a great view over the Plan de Phazy, a plain where three rivers converge, and where I had found an affordable accommodation on Airbnb. I could see the lay of the land, judge how busy the roads were, and pick out a route to my accommodation.
I zig-zagged down to the bottom of the cliff via a winding road, taking a shortcut along a gravel path for the last part of the descent: a marked pathway, but not part of the GR route, and I would not recommend it! Especially when wearing a large backpack. I slithered my way down the steep slope of loose gravel to a small road at the bottom of the cliff, where I abandoned the official route of the GR 653D to make my way to my accommodation.
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| Looking back across the foot-bridge at the cliffs |
I crossed a foot-bridge and walked along a leafy avenue and then for about half a kilometre on the shoulder of a busy highway, turning off at the first side road, which took me into a "production district". I was aiming for the Intermarché supermarket to pick up dinner supplies, but I never made it there: I found first a dairy, where I picked up some fresh locally made cheese and yogurt, and then an organic food store, where I was overwhelmed by all the choices and spent a long time picking out some supplies appropriate to my situation.
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| The cheese ageing room |
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| A cornocupia of fresh organic produce! |
Finally ready to head for "home", I walked a kilometre or so along a quiet road with a cycling lane and then let myself into my Airbnb flat, following my hostess's instructions.
After showering and changing, I headed out again for a brief "bonus hike" to a mineral water spring less than a kilometre from the house. The Source de Phazy has been known and exploited since ancient Roman times, when it was situated on the Via Domitia (though it's a little way off the modern-day GR 653D Via Domitia walking route). In medieval times, there were three hospitals in the area that drew on the healing powers of the water. In 1860 a spa was built, the round construction in the photograph; but on March 19, 1935, an earthquake cut off the flow of thermal water, and the site was abandoned until it was found that the waters could be tapped a little lower down and brought to the surface again. The site is freely accessible.
Tomight I am staying once again in a vaulted cellar, formerly a stable, now a cosy lodging where, in addition to the owners' rooms, there are three bedrooms available for rent on Airbnb, separately or together. A great stopping place for walkers on the Chemin de Compostelle/GR 653D, close to some very good food sources (always a factor to be taken into account in France!), with a shared kitchen for preparing meals. I made myself a pot of lentil soup and a salad, with fresh bread and cheese, and ate so much it practically took me an hour just to eat my dinner... long-distance walking is certainly good for the appetite!
Champcella - Plan de Phazy 21 km
(including a few wrong turns and exploration of a couple of villages!)
