DAY 44 CHALONS TO ST GERMAIN LA VILLE

Despite an early breakfast it took us some time to get going on account of the need to find and book accommodation through the next week. This stage is particularly difficult accommodation-wise and needed careful planning with some modification of our route.

Street art around Chalons centre

Leaving our hotel at about 1100, we headed for the city centre to pick up provisions, and get our Pilgrim Passports stamped at the Office de Tourisme (which was open!).

Freshly painted street art

Passing the Cathedral of St Etienne we saw that it was open too and decided to delay our departure a little longer. We were very glad we did. The medieval stained glass windows are truly stunning! As we went into the cathedral the windows in the south transept were in front of us, glowing in the morning sunlight, and in unison we exclaimed “wow” – they are that good. Unfortunately the ipad camera isn’t capable of picking up the intensity of colours, but in reality they are glowing oranges, reds and blues in huge windows.

Windows in the south transept – in reality they are much more intensely coloured but the ipad camera cannot pick that up!

As with many of the large churches and cathedrals in this area, this one was built in the late 1100s to early 1200s in romanesque and early gothic style, with simple soaring pillars supporting the fan vaulting and huge windows letting in lots if light, despite the equally huge stained glass windows adding luxuriant colour to the simple almost white stonework.

Looking east up the nave, with huge windows above

In one of the side chapels there is what is described as a roman font carved out of stone similar to Tournai stone, beautiful in its simplicity with interesting carvings around the sides.

Roman font in St Etienne cathedral Chalon en Champagne

There were also some very old gravestones which have been preserved as standing carvings, whilst those on the floors have sadly worn beyond recognition. The figures were originally outlined in lead.

The great and good of Chalons immortalised on their gravestones

It was almost lunchtime when we dragged ourselves out of the cathedral and started on our way. As we recrossed the canal a barge was squeezing through the lock with no more than 6 inches to spare each side and only just fitting its length within the lock gates. Some very skilful driving required!

On crossing the Marne bridge we learned that it had been destroyed several times during WW2 as each side sought to prevent the other from gaining advantage: first by the French to slow down the German invasion in 1940, and then in 1944 by the Germans to hamper the Allied advance. The current bridge was built in 1945.

From here, we followed the river Marne upstream walking along the eastern bank on a good, level path, with dappled shade from surrounding trees and a slight breeze.

Setting off upstream along the eastern bank of the mighty Marne

Having set off so late we were soon in need of our lunch, and found a suitable fallen tree trunk to sit on close to the river bank to enjoy our bought filled rolls. A nice change from our usual bread and cheese!

After several kilometres of walking we came out into fields on our landward side, again cultivating huge areas of arable crops. For some time we could see the taller buildings in Chalon behind us on our northern eastern horizon, with the cathedral particularly prominent.

The next few kilometres took us around several lakes which were being used for fishing and signed as out of bounds to the rest of us.

Out in the fields the farmers were busy tending their crops, and we saw a few walkers and cyclists out enjoying the glorious sunshine. One young man was walking the Camino, which still runs along the same route as our Via Francigena at this point. We stopped for a chat. It sounded like he’d passed the young Englishman from Northampton we’d met in Bruay. It was good to know he still going strong. Several other walkers wished us bon courage once they realised we were walking over 2000 kilometres to Rome!

Eventually we turned away from the river to follow a canal path which took us to Saint Germain la Ville, our destination for today. There were swathes of cowslips along the bank.

Barges pull this contraption to trigger opening of the lock gates
Barge heading for the lock after pulling the lever

We found our lodgings in a farmstead on the other side of the village, and were glad we had requested ‘table d’hote’ as we were given a very ample and delicious supper by our farming hosts.

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