Road to Home 2023 Day 10: Mont-Saint-Éloi - Arras

Un chemin aboutit toujours à d’autres chemins qui mènent encore à d’autres dans un mouvement sans fin qui laisse l’initiative au marcheur.

-David le Breton, Marcher la vie : Un art tranquille du bonheur

The Romans founded the city of Nemetacum, now Arras, at a junction of roads, and it is still a crossroads of long-distance walking routes: the Via Francigena, the Via Brughensis from the Netherlands and Bruges to Santiago de Compostela, a provincial long-distance path visiting historic WW I sites.... and more paths converge here. Many walkers stop in the city for a couple of nights to take a break, but I broke up my stages so that I would have only a short walk into the town and could then spend the rest of the day sightseeing.

I thought it would be only about 10 kilometres from Mont-Saint-Éloi to Arras, but it ended up being fifteen; in any case I was in town by noon. I had booked a room at the Maison Diocésain Saint Vaast, and so, under the mistaken impression that it would be adjacent to the cathedral of the same name, I followed the signs leading there. But the cathedral was shut and my lodgings turned out to be in an entirely different part of the city. When I eventually did find the former seminary, where rooms are available to pilgrims, it was such an impressive building I was afraid to ring the bell!

Originally a convent, disbanded after the Revolution, and then used as a school and a seminary, the building is still the home of the Bishop of Arras, whose apartments are presumably more luxurious than my own. Simply furnished rooms are available to visitors attending conferences, seminars and events organised by the church - and to pilgrims.

After resting here for a while, I ventured out to explore the city. 

Arras is a phoenix city - Louis XI took down its walls in 1477, the Gothic cathedral was destroyed in the French Revolution, and then the entire city was practically razed to the ground during the First World War,  when it was less than ten kilometres from the front. Arras was rebuilt during the 1920s, painstakingly reconstructing the elaborately decorated town hall, the belfry and the houses around the two main squares, all of which had been built in Flemish style when the city was part of the Spanish Netherlands. 

L’hôtel de ville d’Arras est sans contredit le plus considérable et le plus splendide de tous ceux du Nord de la France, je pourrais ajouter de la France entière, en tant que relique du Moyen Age municipal

- Paul Verlaine, La vieille ville 

The number one attraction to see in Arras is the view from the top of the belfry tower, so I headed there - but it was closed due to an elevator malfunction. So I went the opposite way, down below the surface of the city, to explore the boves, the excavations into the stone originally made to obtain construction materials but later extended to provide storage space and used to construct a whole underground city by the Allies in World War I, then again as bomb shelters in World War II. I had only just emerged from these when I bumped into my four Canadian friends,  with whom I have been walking on and off since Calais, but who had taken an alternate route over the past couple of days. We repaired to a pub together where I made the mistake of ordering a fruit-flavoured Belgian beer... but made up with it with the best veggie burger I've ever had, a gourmet French version!

I then returned to my accommodation to meet up with a fellow walker from Road to Rome 2021 who lives in Arras and is active in the pilgrim community here. Didier Morel gave me all sorts of advice and recommendations for the remainder of the Via Francigena in France, which is quite a long way - I hope to remember all his suggestions! 

Today's accommodations: Maison Diocésain Saint Vaast 

Mont-Saint-Éloi  - Arras 15 km