Mon Sept 29. Servins. 18.6 km.

Lots of cows outside here, and several different kinds. Apparently over 50 different breeds of cows are found in France. The inside cows were noisily waiting for their supper (probably more accurately, their dessert as they had been outside all day) at the farm where I stayed, and the white cows so far have been the most common.

Here is a lovely little castle 13th to 15th century, at Olhain. Seen through a fence.

The only other eventful happening today was getting lost in a forest holiday camping and sports centre - no signage at all for the Via Francigena, and the centre was enormous. No photos because I was too distracted trying to find my way out!

Fall colours are starting to appear. Very muted compared to what we have at home.

One last photo from yesterday. This is the house where Saint Benoît-Joseph Labré (1748- 1783), patron saint of pilgrims and of the homeless, grew up. (Saint Roch is the Italian patron saint of pilgrims). The eldest of 15 children, at 21 he left home to be a pilgrim. For the rest of his life he walked to and from holy sites, and wrought several miracles.

The story I like the best happened well after his death, in WWII. The Germans wanted to stable horses in the Labré house. A peasant warned them not to, as it was a holy place. The Germans didn’t listen, but the horses balked and refused to enter. The house was spared.

Comments

September 5

I landed at Heathrow this morning at 6 am, a very inconvenient time to get a room and rest! But my student residence accommodation includes a common room with handy couches for a short snooze. The neighbourhood abuts on Regent’s Park, complete with gorgeous flowerbeds. The Queen Mary’s rose garden in Regent’s Park. My neighbourhood wandering took me to the Wallace House which used to be one of the homes of the marquesses of Hertford. The Hertfords were fabulously rich, mainly from extensive land holdings, and in the 18th and 19th centuries avid art collectors. They obviously had Trumpian home decorating tastes. Here are two of their many clocks, all of which need frequent ‘fine tuning’, it appears. I particularly liked two 18th c British paintings by Sir Joshua Reynolds in their collection: Mrs Carnac and the hauntingly strange Strawberry Girl.

Sat Oct 4. London.

19 days walking on pilgrimage paths for a total of 395 km or 245 miles on foot (not that arduous - an average of 20.7 km per day, and lots of ‘rest days’ staying put in one place). All of that undone in 1.5 hours on a Eurostar train. I’m not entirely sure what conclusion I’m drawing from that comparison, but I’m back where I started, in London. On my way to my lodgings (I’m staying in a Buddhist retreat centre) I decided to visit the first visitable place to cross my path, which turned out to be the Foundling Museum. Horrified by the sight of infants being abandoned on 18th c London streets, a prosperous seaman, Thomas Coram, spent 17 years raising awareness and funds, as well as obtaining royal permission to build London’s first children’s charity. Opened in 1739, the Foundling Hospital continued its work until the 1950s, and actually is still active as a non-institutional resource, under a different name. Here is a photo of it in 1935. So many similarities to ...

Fri Oct 3. Lille.

I had a lovely day in Lille. In fact, all my days on this trip have been lovely! In the morning I went to the very large Palais des Beaux-Arts. This museum holds the largest collection of works of art of any French institution outside Paris. The collection started at the time of the French Revolution as the works of art of the nobility and of the church were confiscated, and continued on apace due to various enthusiastic municipal governments. By 1892 the collection was so large and important that the Palais, its current house, was constructed in the centre of town. The first fun aspect was the recent work of the Swiss artist Felice Varini who used the museum’s interior as his canvas. The oldest works of art are in the ‘basement’, beautifully displayed. Look at the marvellous three dimensionality of this (flat) marble plaque sculpted by Donatello (c 1435) showing Salomé dancing for the head of John the Baptist. And modern technology brings statues alive by giving them back t...

Celia Walks

Search This Blog