82 kms. Details
Belatedly blogging about yesterday's journey having been frustrated by a pitiful wifi connection last night.
Did I mention that I was in Limousin?
A fair bit of climbing today through quite substantial rolling hills which are, I suspect, the outermost ripples of the Massif Central. And the road, the D940/941, turned out to be a good example of what I mentioned yesterday. It's quite a major road, beautifully maintained - large sections of it so recently resurfaced they haven't even replaced the road markings - but it isn't the most direct route to anywhere and on this Whit Monday it was dead quiet. Actually, I can't pretend that the fact of it being Whit Monday influenced my choice, I'm completely oblivious to the date etc. I only know its a holiday because here in Guéret, which I suspect is a half-dead town at the best of times, absolutely everything is shut.
Fortunately, that wasn't the case everywhere. In a re-run of my experience at La Bagatelle south of Chartres, I stopped for lunch at a local café that can only be described as unpretentious. On asking for the menu I was told to sit down, and there followed four courses. No choice, and heaven help you if you're vegetarian. For starters I was presented with a loaf of bread and a thumping great chicken terrine and simply left to carve myself slices from the pair of them. Then more chicken, this time a breast of chicken, fried, with a huge heap of Dauphinoise potatoes. Cheeseboard, then a dessert that very closely resembled a Bakewell Tart. €14.
And today brought another example of the advantages of this rather undirected, exploratory mode of travel. About an hour out of Limoges I passed through a little place called St Léonard de Noblat. Never heard of it before, but it was obviously old so I had a look around. Yet another charming and very unspoilt mediaeval town, this time with a church (called, for a reason I was unable to fathom, a Collegia) of real distinction.
Nave and transept 1030-1070 (!), porch and tower a bit later. I know the eagle-eyed among you won't have missed the splendid flying buttresses.
And this is yet another little town on one of the St Jacques de Compostelle pilgrimage routes, a couple of which I seem to have criss-crossed several times without any such intention. I've been looking up the network of routes to Santiago, they extend right across Europe, and it occurs to me that there's a terrific bicycle tour to be created out of one or more of them...
2 comments:
What a tremendous and very early Romanesque-looking church. I see it's a Unesco World Heritage site. I like flying buttresses too, but apsidal terminations are my favourite feature and you have a hatful here. The collegia matter - could it be like our collegiate churches? Any thoughts on from where you plan to leave France? If you go near Rouen, a slight detour to the village of Jumieges is a must, where the ruined abbey is the forerunner of most early stuff in the UK, notably Canterbury.
As you will see from the next post, I'm in transit for Paris with a view to tomorrow's Eurostar. Rouen next time. Actually, I have at least two more French tours in mind, this one has been so terrific and I've really only done a a chunk of the west and south-west. Burgundy and the Alps is on the list, for a start.
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