Mieux vaut allumer une bougie que maudire les ténèbres
Better to light a candle than to curse the darkness
- graffiti in Langres
The Way to Rome, like the many Ways to Santiago, is illuminated by candles lit by many people. People like Elisabeth in Marac, Nicole and René in Fontaine-sur-Coole, or Viviane in Trépail, who take in pilgrims and provide dinner, bed and breakfast in exchange for a small fee or a donation to cover expenses. People like Fabrice in Blessonville or Michel in Corbeil, who keep the keys to a small hostel and provide groceries in tiny villages where there are no hotels, shops or restaurants. People like the parishioners of Langres or the members of the pilgrims' associations of Brienne-le-Château and Bar-sur-Aube, who bring an old building back to life as a pilgrim hostel, with all the cleaning and maintenance that involves! I have given a few of them, when I remembered, a key necklace like the one I wear on this pilgrimage: the key as a symbol of St Peter, and therefore Rome, but also as a symbol of Home, my true destination on this walk from the home where I was born to the home where I live! I left a key necklace on the statue of St Jacques in the pilgrim hostel in Langres, to tie him in with the pilgrimage to Rome. The path we walked today is part of both routes: the GR145 or Via Francigena, and the GR7, from the Vosges to the Pyrenees on the Chemin de Compostelle.
We left the city of Langres on this path after enjoying the view from the ramparts of the city walls over the country we were about to cross, and the lake we would spend the morning walking around.
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| Porte Henri IV |
The canal took us to Lac de Liez, an artificial lake or reservoir created by a dam, populated on this Sunday morning by plenty of fishermen. It took us almost all morning to walk around the lake, on a forest trail that was so lovely we didn't complain about having to follow the bends in the lake and practically retrace our steps on the other side.
Along the way we met Curtis, a walker from Atlanta, Georgia whom Elaine had first encountered in Reims Cathedral. We continued together through the forest, eventually leaving the lake to walk among fields of cattle, where we caught up with Esther, the Dutch walker with whom we had shared the hostel in Langres.
In the village of Chatenay-Vaudan Elaine and I stopped for a lunch break, while the others continued on. We stuck to the official GR route rather than walk a kilometre on the shoulder of a busy highway; this meant walking two sides of a triangle rather than cutting straight across, but it gave us a chance to see Fort Fermier, a fortress built in the 1880s as a line of defence for France's eastern border. 360 soldiers were garrisoned in the fort, which is now being revitalised by two couples as a farm, farm-to-table restaurant and event venue; there was some kind of banquet going on when we arrived, and everyone was all dressed up, so we dared not disturb them to ask if they could sell us a cold drink!
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| Fort Fermier overgrown with grass looked like a hobbit village from far away! |
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| The fort is now manned by chickens |
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| Fresh vegetables and plants for sale |
The afternoon was the warmest on our walk yet, and we were just about out of water. But it was only a few more kilometres to Torcenay, our stopping-place for the evening, chez Sylvie, who rents her spare room to tourists on Airbnb but also to pilgrims directly, at a better rate and with dinner and breakfast, on request. Her beautiful house in provençal style is just too posh for pilgrims! We're being very careful not to get any of the grime accumulated over the past 800 kilometres or so on her lacey white bedspreads, or dirty her floors with our grimy boots and backpacks!
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| Dinner is served in the conservatory |
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| Fun food: raclette! |
Langres - Torcenay 27.5 km
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