Le premier besoin de l'homme, son premier droit, son premier devoir, c'est la liberté.
Victor Hugo, Discours du Congrès de la Paix à Lausanne (1869)
Liberty is the very soul of a voyage like this one. First of all, the liberty to be able to undertake such a voyage; and secondly, the liberty to proceed with it at will, starting or stopping as the fancy takes you, choosing one path or another, limited only by the fulfilment of bodily needs such as the need for food or rest.
This morning's voyage began with a wait outside a small supermarket, or convenience store, which, according to the sign on the door, promised to open at nine, despite the Pentecost holiday. We decided this would be worth waiting for as we were unlikely to find any sources of food for the rest of the day. We waited in a pleasant treed square with benches, on one of which a homeless man was sleeping under a heavy blanket. He was beginning to stir and so Mick went into the café across the way and bought him a coffee and a croissant. Then the little supermarket opened and we bought fruit and cheese to keep us going for the day.
With this fuel in our packs, the three of us set off along the Saône river below the citadel of Besançon. We left the river and began a steep climb; soon we were high above the citadel that had been towering over us before. We reached the chapel of Chapelle des Buis and looked down on the city below.
A little further along the trail, we came to Nôtre-Dame de la Liberté, a massive statue and an underground chapel built in 1949 in fulfilment of a vow made by the bishop of Besançon, illustrious predecessor of the man I met yesterday, during the war. He vowed that if the city if Besançon was spared from destruction by bombing, he would build a chapel in honour of Our Lady. And so he did!
Leaving the chapel behind, we proceeded on our way along a forest path corresponding to an ancient Roman road, quite possibly travelled by Julius Caesar himself as well as by the key figure of the Via Francigena, Sigeric the Serious. As we walked on the path a blonde woman's head appeared above a fence and asked us if we would like a cup of coffee. We agreed and the garden gate opened; just as we were going in, another walker appeared behind us, wearing a sun umbrella hat unmistakably identifying her as Québécoise! Audrey from Montreal joined us in the garden, where our gracious hosts Marie-Françoise and her husband Jacques served us coffee, fruit juice and nuts at the table by the pool.
Marie-Françoise is a painter, and showed us some of her work in her sun-filled studio. Jacques is a retired gym teacher, and both of them are very athletic - despite having 25 grandchildren to keep them busy!
After our break we continued on, climbing even higher before beginning the descent into the valley below. We stopped outside the mairie for a snack then carried on across farmland and through the villages of Saône and Mamirolles, where we dreamed of finding a cold beer or an ice cream, but what few places of business there were, were shut due to the Pentecost holiday. We did however find a very clean public toilet - only the third or fourth public toilet I have come across, walking a thousand kilometres across France! For the rest, the bushes have had to do.
We were very happy to see the sign announcing that we had arrived in the village of Foucherans, and even happier to see the sign for the Gîte d'Etape! A rather dotty next-door neighbour, whom we were later told had Alzheimer's, showed us around the gîte, until we realised something was not quite right and telephoned the woman in charge. She came over to set us right, collect our money and stamp our pilgrim credentials, then at 7 pm our dinners were delivered by a man from the restaurant in a nearby village, well wrapped in thermal trays. We did not test the heat-retaining qualities of the packaging, but devoured our meals right away and went to bed!
Today's accommodations: Gîte d'Etape de Foucherans
Besançon - Foucherans 28 km
No comments:
Post a Comment