DAY 62 – DAMPIERRE-SUR-SALON TO BUCEY-LES-GY

Our overnight accommodation at Dampierre, the Au Bon Vivant chambre d’hote, was very comfortable. There were three other guests there including a couple from Lausanne. Conversation over pre-dinner drinks focussed on politics and international relations. The general consensus was that Brexit was a disaster for Britain, France and Switzerland in equal measure. Interestingly, they thought the chances of Britain rejoining the EU soon were high. Don’t we wish!

The Au Bon Vivant

The ‘official’ VF route from Dampierre to Bucey-les-Gy takes a wide loop well to the north east of the rhumb line. Mindful that this meant a walk of more than 35 km without any particular features of interest, we decided to take a more direct route, but with the River Soane between us and our objective and relatively few crossing points, this was a bit if a challenge.

Retracing our steps back to the centre of town, in view of the ghastly glass high-rise monstrosity, we took the busy D36 eastward out of town. Our host had recommended that we take a riverside route which is ‘tres jolie’ but our thoughts were to minimise distance as much as we could.

Walking along a busy road is not a pleasant experience. Often it seems like the drivers want to cut as close to you as possible at full speed in order to frighten you, or is it to say to us that we’ve inconvenienced them by making them pass around us? Whatever, we’ve worked out that the best strategy is to walk on the right hand side of the road (they really don’t like it if you walk on the left and face the traffic!), and stick a walking pole out when you hear a vehicle coming up behind you, to make them pass wide and clear, or slow up if there is oncoming traffic.

A couple of km short of the turning for Seveux we turned south to follow a deviation of the Saone Navigation just where it emerged from a tunnel. Before turning off the towpath and crossing the Saone itself – a mighty river indeed.

The Saone

At Seveux we called in at the boulangerie to see if we could find some fresh ‘sandwiches’. Instead we were persuaded to buy some delicious pizza-pasty type things (apparently local speciality). It’s actually more tasty than it looks!

Leaving Seveux we took the Rue des Paquis, a very pleasant country lane following close to the river. Soon we passed a house with all sorts of signs on its fence about polite dogs and ‘mechant’ owners which amused us, especially after our experience at Champlitte. The owner emerged and greeted us, inquiring if we were doing the Via Francigena. Having confirmed that we were, she called her husband and he came running from the garden to greet us. After explaining our project, he gave us each a VF lapel badge. We talked about the absurdity of the ‘official’ VF route to the north and they explained that the route we were taking is much closer to Siguric’s original route. We admired their lovely white and grey border collie with blue eyes. After having our photo taken with her husband we bad farewell and continued on our way. These chance encounters and enthusiasm for our efforts make it all the more worthwhile.

From there we walked on through some interesting mixed farmland before entering the forest.

All the time the temperature remained cool with a slight drizzle every now and again, but not enough to justify caghoules – actually very pleasant conditions for walking.

At the end of the tar road we came upon a picnic area with sit-on tables. Being almost midday we opted for an early lunch stop which was brought to a slightly premature end by the start of more intensive rain.

For most of the rest of the afternoon we walked in caghoules with rain covers over our packs, but the rain never got heavy enough to justify putting on our waterproof trousers as well.

We eventually emerged from the first stretch of forest into more mixed farmland, including small herds of cattle and goats. We even saw a peacock sitting on a window ledge admiring his own reflection, but couldn’t persuade him to show off his feathers to us.

This was Sainte Reine, a very small village of scattered houses and quite a few derelict buildings symptomatic of the depopulation of rural France. However, it had a pretty washhouse, and the only one we’ve seen so far with a drying rack.

Up the road we spied some small trees on a bank providing a little shelter from the rain and decided to have our hourly stop there. It happened to be opposite a farmhouse, and the friendly old dog wandered out to say hello to us, ignoring the owner’s pleas to come back. We exchanged a few words with them both and then asked if we might refill our water bottles. She was busy cleaning out kilner jars which were to be used for preserving ‘haricots’.

After a short bit of track between fields – and a few young bullocks to chat to awhile – we joined the busy D road and followed it into La Chapelle St Quillain. We were due for another hourly break and spotted the church door open, so headed over.

Despite its rather uninteresting exterior, the inside of the church was well maintained, and rather grand and elaborate for a small village church. Sadly we could only admire it through a pair of ornate metal gates, but there was at least a bench in the porch, weary pilgrims for the use of.

We still had about 8kms to go, and set off down another D road before turning off onto a long straight undulating forest track which we then followed south for about 5kms.

After what felt like an eternity – as it always does by late afternoon – we emerged out of the forest and into a new valley bordered by ‘les monts’ of Gy, which Tom reckons looked like a series of limestone escarpments dipping westwards across our southerly horizon.

Just around the corner we saw our first field full of blooming sunflowers, having previously seen only the occasional single flower in a field. Tom was excited to see a swallowtail butterfly which Julie was too slow to photograph. Since his childhood Tom has yearned to see a swallowtail in the wild, and today his wish was granted.

Before reaching Bucey-les-Gy we passed through Vellefrey, which probably has the best preserved lavoire we’ve seen so far. You could see how it would be used as the wooden wash boards were intact and the water supply was functioning.

By now we could hear rumbles of thunder and storm clouds were gathering not far away, so we strode on down the road to find our billet for tonight, keen to avoid getting caught out in another storm at this stage of the day.

Tonight’s lodging is in what appears to have been a granny annex in a converted building in the front yard. It is compact but comfortable, and saves us the additional energy of conversing with our hosts in French all evening. That can be very satisfying but quite tiring at the end of a long day of walking, as we had today.

The highlight of the day was seeing the swallowtail butterfly. Just a pity we didn’t manage to photograph it…

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