Friday April 3. Corbeny. 12.6 km.

Today’s walk was supposed to be 32 km with some up and down. Neither my feet nor I myself felt inclined to tackle this, so instead I took the one-bus-a-day on this route, and for 2 euros ($3.50) covered the distance very happily.

As there is nothing much to do in the small village of Corbeny, I walked backwards on the Via to the Abbaye de Vaucluse. This is one of the many abbeys dissolved in the French Revolution as the people freed themselves from the church’s control of land, rents and taxation. What was left of the extensive buildings and grounds was then almost totally destroyed in WWI. Here are some archaeologists and engineers debating on next preservation steps.

Volunteers were gathering to review photo exhibits and to plan the next gardening tasks, as the site has an impressively large medieval style medicinal garden. The plants are separated by large paving stones, similar to a medieval layout. The crater-holes made by WWI projectiles have been left in the grounds and in the medicinal garden are filled with plants. I would love to come here later in the season!

Tonight I’m staying at my absolutely favorite type of lodging: a small family-run country hotel with a dining room where supper is served for residents at 7 pm punctual, three courses with one choice per course (and table cloths on the tables). I had green leaf salad with hot melted cheese on a thin slice of bread; a thin steak with a peppercorn cream sauce and thin French fries; and a superbly delicious rhubarb and raspberry gratin on a perfect custard base. The mother cooks and her two middle-aged daughters do everything else to keep their 21 room hotel going. I’m going to work at learning to make that desert!

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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...

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.

Celia Walks

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