Tuesday April 7. Verzy. 20.7 km.

First to finish yesterday’s story. Reims is a champagne town. On a brochure I counted 21 Maisons de Champagne, including ones like Mumm, Tattinger, Veuve Clicquot and Piper-Heidsieck. At the tourist office a very friendly lady recommended the Domaine Pommery for a visit, as unlike the others no reservation or group tour was needed.

Opposite the Domaine Pommery was a surprising find for me, the Village Demoiselle. Built in 1900 in the Art Nouveau style, the house was about to be demolished when a building inspector classified the interior staircase as historically significant. This meant it couldn’t be demolished, but it sat vacant except for squatters for many years. A champagne magnet with deep pockets bought it and restored it to 1900 glory. What a gem! I took way too many photos as I love this style.

Look at how you can see the garden through the staircase windows.

Beautiful furniture and finishings as well.

After the visit your ticket gives you a glass of champagne.

Sipping in the garden.

Followed by a visit to the Maison Pommery. Founded in 1836, it became the life work of Madame Pommery to build up the winery. She had an “English-style” Maison built as she knew to develop a prestige brand she needed a foreign market. This ‘interesting’ building sits on top of EIGHTEEN kilometres of Gallo-Roman tunnels (originally to mine stone) now used to age the wine. Visitors can walk through some of these tunnels, seeing dusty stacked bottles enlivened with modern art installations.

The visitor ticket also included a glass of champagne. I’m sorry to admit that I don’t see the wonders of champagne; I think Prosecco and Cava will continue to grace my table at home!

All that was yesterday. I had a lovely tiny flat for my two nights in Reims and made myself meals with veggies. Today is a different matter. A croissant walking out of town, a chicken sandwich for a picnic lunch (lots of bread and hardly any chicken) and bread, cheese and clementines at my pilgrim lodging for supper. Tomorrow also promises to be a food desert.

Oh well, it is warm and sunny and the walk today was fine. Again along a canal getting out of Reims, then fields, and finally vineyards. People were inspecting the vines, checking the wires and worried because next week may be cold again. I walked for a while with a local lady. She pointed out that several people are going back to using horses in the fields. This horse was sweaty and the plough lady looked weary as she turned and headed down a row.

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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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