Our billet is very comfortable though the cuisine is indifferent, except for breakfast which was excellent. We were given a family room with both a double and two single beds, and the advantage of windows front and back giving us a much needed through-draught last night. So much so that when the wind got up in the night the interlocking door slammed and must have woken half the hotel!
We woke to fairly heavy rain and someone drilling in the adjacent building which is being renovated. Breakfast and laundry sorted, and the rain having stopped, we headed out to look around and find the cathedral.
Langres is a delightful medieval walled town with cobbled streets, alleyways between curvaceous walls, and mostly closed shops as today is Monday. It is clearly popular with tourists from across Europe. In the past Langres was an important hub for trading routes across Europe and lay at the junction of several Roman roads.
Saint-Mammes cathedral was built from 1150 in one main campaign, so its style is simple romanesque with relatively little later embellishment.
It was notable that many of the culturally important artefacts – tapestries, statues, frescos, reliefs – originated in other ecclesiastical buildings which were damaged, looted, or destroyed during wars or the French Revolution. Two of a set of eight tapestries about the life of St Mammes were made in 1544 and hang in the transepts, and a third is in the Louvre, the other five being now lost.
We particularly liked the striking 16th century high-relief polychrome sculpture of the resurrection of Lazarus (above) which came from Clairvaux Abbey.
The ornate choir screens (one each side of the high altar) were made for the Abbaye de Morimond in 1717 and moved to Langres in 1792. Sadly, as far as we know, this cathedral like others in France has abandoned its historical choral tradition, leaving it to the Protestant churches of the UK and Europe to perpetuate choral polyphony and the training of young choristers.
Wandering in search of somewhere nice to have lunch we came to the old city walls which offer stunning long distance views over the surrounding countryside. We think we’ve worked out where we’re heading next…though the Jura and Alps remain stubbornly well beyond the horizon for now.
Lunch in a popular restaurant adjacent to the statue of Diderot was followed by a futile search for somewhere to buy a replacement adapter to charge our devices as the nifty little one bought online doesn’t work. We will just have to be careful not to lose our one and only functioning adapter! However, we were successful in finding the tourist office and were able to get our pilgrim passports stamped.
In the local tradition we then took a long siesta before applying ourselves to the logistics of the next few days which are, as ever, not straightforward. We have the prospect of two very long days on Wednesday and Friday, but at least the forecast is for cooler weather and the other days are relatively short. We just hope that our stamina will hold out for whatever we can do to shorten the longer days.