Thursday April 24. Culmont . 20.4 km.

Back in a tiny village tonight in simple lodgings on a farm.

Starting out this morning I checked the route on the Via Francigena app (23.3 km) and the suggested walking route on the ING app (12 km). The darling Via does sometimes do round-about routes! Anyway, took the Via suggestion. Walking out of Langres through a gate in the walls brought back happy memories of the many days in Italy that started walking out of a city gate.

Having come down from Langres, after a bit the path met a canal. Lots of big fish behaving as my goldfish used to in the spring, rubbing each other against the banks with a lot of splashing. I’m assuming they are spawning. Here I’m looking back at Langres from the canal.

Then the path took me up and 3/4 around a large artificial lake, created in the 19th century to hold water that will feed the canal system during dry weather. For a bit there were amenities for summer holidayers; this sign relies a bit too heavily on a foreign language, methinks!

But it is the end of the wet season, and water levels are high. After walking a good long way past the summer holiday zone, this is what appeared. No way around (all water, mud and thick brambles). So off came boots and socks and I waded. One flooded zone followed close on another.

And then this. Try keeping your pants dry with a backpack on your back!

Finally seeing a lane heading inland I gave up, closed the Via Francigena app and opened the ING app. Dry farm roads eventually led me to my destination, with a fair amount of ups and downs as it is getting a bit hilly.

Discussion with the landlady and her husband was interesting tonight. They have a 300 hectare farm with 120 head of dairy cattle, now being run by their son and grandson. I told them I was happily surprised by the number of family farms passing through generations. They corrected me; I have that impression because I keep staying in small gîtes which are run by grandparents needing something to do besides helping out occasionally on the farm. Many farms here are being bought out by corporations just like in Canada. This is their house.

A big concern, besides of course the weather which is always a concern on the land, are wolves. Wild wolves were introduced in the northern Italian mountains and they have made their way down here. Apparently it is estimated that there are 2,000 wolves in France now, and a female wolf can have up to seven cubs, they say. Yesterday in the next village wolves killed two sheep; easy prey. It is as of yet still forbidden to hunt wolves.

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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 ...

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.

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

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