Joanne's long walks: Road to Home 2023 Day 40: Dampierre-sur-Salon

Thursday, May 25, 2023

Road to Home 2023 Day 40: Dampierre-sur-Salon - Fresne-Saint-Mamès

I cannot see the wit of walking and talking at the same time. When I am in the country, I wish to vegetate like the country.

I grant there is one subject on which it is pleasant to talk on a journey, and that is, what we shall have for supper when we get to our inn at night.

- William Hazlitt, On Going a Journey (1822)

Today we walked in company, but without speaking of anything other than the present moment and what we saw around us.

Following breakfast, the stamping of pilgrim credentials and the settlement of accounts with our amusing host at Au bon vivant, we set off in the company of Frédéric, a French walker who is staying at the same accommodations as us for the next couple of nights. After a quick stop at the supermarket and bakery for lunch supplies, we headed out of Dampierre and back to the Via Francigena, which cuts across the edge of the town on the other side of the Salon river. Soon we were back out in the fields, with only cattle for company.

We skirted a wheat field then followed a forest trail, passing under the railroad tracks through a dark and narrow tunnel. We emerged onto a bicycle path beside the river Saône. We passed the Savoyeux locks and climbed the hill to look down on where the canalised river flows through the Savoyeux tunnel, built in 1843 to connect two meanders of the Saône and make the river navigable.

We sat beside the river for a break and a snack, and I finished off the chocolate-covered biscuits that had fused together in my backpack - it's getting too warm to carry chocolate! I covered my hands and face in chocolate in the process - well they say cocoa butter is good for the skin!

As we were getting up to go, we were joined by Ross, the British walker I had first met in Seraucourt-le-Grand but not seen again since - until he walked into our dormitory last night. The four of us continued together as far as the village of Vellexon, where we stopped for a lunch break on a bench in the shade of a bus shelter, as the afternoon was becoming very warm.

At Vellexon - a name we decided would be appropriate for an asteroid - we parted ways: Ross had several more kilometres to go along the GR145 to Bussey-les-Gy, while the rest of us had decided to shorten today's stage by detouring off the Via Francigena to stay in a small hotel in Fresne-Saint-Mamès. Our improvised route started off beautifully, on a dirt road following the meanders of a stream called the Romaine, where we repeatedly disturbed a heron attempting to fish in the stream; the last time we passed by it, the bird flew right over my head! The dirt road eventually took us back to the highway, and we continued along its grassy shoulder to Fresne-Saint-Mamès. We made a quick stop at the local supermarket to pick up an afternoon snack and lunch supplies for tomorrow; we bought a litre of grapefruit juice and quaffed it all in the supermarket parking lot! Anyone seeing us might have supposed we were winos downing a litre of cheap swill straight out of the carton!

Following the main road through to the top end of the town in the warm afternoon sun, we finally came to our colourful lodgings at the Hotel du Mouton Blanc. The corridors are blue, the rooms bright orange, the "wild west" saloon-themed restaurant a deep red. On the menu tonight was salad, chili and rice - not very French, but tasty and nutritious!