Joanne's long walks: Road to Home 2023 Day 41: Fresne-Saint-Mamès

Friday, May 26, 2023

Road to Home 2023 Day 41: Fresne-Saint-Mamès - Gy

Ancient roads leave behind both a cultural and a spiritual legacy; like rivers, roads affect the country they run through, and the cultural and spiritual trail left behind by an ancient road never vanishes. Those who walk such a trail get something out of what has been left there by earlier travellers.

Via Francigena pioneer Giovanni Caselli, in The Roads from England to Italy (2009)

Today we walked a combination of trails, starting out on a modern highway, reaching the Via Francigena, and then branching off onto the Chemin de Compostelle, following one of the many paths that cross France to join the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

This allowed us to shorten what would otherwise have been a very long stage on a hot day, and find accomodations on a long weekend! The pilgrim accomodations in Bucey-les-Gy were already fully booked up, so we followed the Chemin de Compostelle to the next village, Gy. And I'm glad it worked out this way because one of the walkers I had initially shared accommodations with in the first part of this walk, Mick the Irishman from Newcastle, is also staying at the pilgrim hostel here! We hadn't seen each other since before my four-day detour around the Somme to my great-grandfather's grave, back in April. It turns out Mick was laid up for five days in Reims with blisters on his feet, and so we are once more in the same place at the same time!

Today's stage took us through some pretty countryside and a lovely forest, though unfortunately all on paved roads. The morning was warm and humid, and by nine o'clock we were already covered in sweat! The humidity cleared up a bit in the afternoon but the sun was very hot, and in addition I suffered from allergies, which I don't normally get at home! Luckily Mick has some allergy medication in his backpack and gave me some tablets when we met at the hostel.

We stopped for lunch in a shady spot by the mairie/lavoir in Vantoux, where there is a beautiful fountain with a cast iron sculpture. The water is not drinkable, but at least I could splash myself and soak my hat in it! It's suddenly that hot - and to think that only a couple of days ago we were still wearing our jackets in the morning!

The afternoon brought us to the town of Bucey-les-Gy, where a farmer just pulling up in front of his barn on a rather ancient tractor called us over and asked if we would like to see his....er.... rooster! 😅

After this curious episode, seeing as the two gîtes in Bucey-les-Gy were both full up, we left the Via Francigena and followed the coquille de Saint Jacques symbol across the fields to the neighbouring village of Gy, where we are housed for this evening at Gîte de la Fontaine, an accommodation in a beautiful old home available only to pilgrims walking either the Via Francigena or the Chemin de Compostelle. One of the wonderful things about walking ancient pilgrimage routes is that doors are open to you that are not open to ordinary visitors passing through by car! Doors of monasteries, castles, private homes, and beautiful historic buildings like this one!

Elaine, Frédéric and I settled in, showered and washed some clothes, and agreed that once "Michael the Irishman", whom we'd been told would be arriving later in the afternoon, was here, we'd all go out for a drink. Michael the Irishman turned out to be Mick from Newcastle, who is indeed originally Irish , despite his Geordie accent, and I already knew him from the first few days of my walk, but hadn't seen him for almost a month! So we had a lot of catching up to do over that beer! Then we returned to the hostel for the dinner our host had prepared and left in the refrigerator for us. All we had to do was cook the spaghetti, and I volunteered to do that, as the expert on making pasta! I also volunteered to make the coffee tomorrow morning, because the hostel has a proper Italian stovetop moka coffeemaker!