DAY 77 – REST DAY IN MARTIGNY

We were taken aback to be told when we checked in last night that the hotel restaurant would be closed tonight and the wifi was likely to go down because the hotel would be full. In fact, we were the only guests at breakfast this morning and the hotel still appears to be quite empty. Anyway, the demi-pension supper last night was very good, with more locally farmed trout cooked in lots of butter and every course well presented. Breakfast was also good, and all the better for being taken late and at leisure.

As ever on a rest day we spent the morning sorting out laundry and repairs, before heading back into town for lunch in the main square where we’d spotted several promising looking restaurants on the way through yesterday.

A nice salad made with fresh local produce and demi carafe of local rose wine and we were replete. Time to find the tourist office to get our pilgrim passports stamped and find out what was going on with the onward path. We had been told by our Icelandic friends yesterday that a pilgrim walking ahead of them had reported that due to a rock fall some of the next day’s path had become impassible and pilgrims were having to take the bus for part of the route.

Hotel de Ville Martigny

The very helpful young woman in the tourist office confirmed that following a big storm last week there has been several landslides between Bovernier and Sembrancher which have taken out the VF path. The train service has been restored, though she wasn’t sure whether this is by way of a bus replacement service. Either way, the advertised service for tomorrow leaves Bovernier hourly on the hour for Sembrancher. And as this is Switzerland we can be sure it will run exactly to time! We were given a very helpful topographic map which gives us a much better idea of our route than the ordinary two dimensional map.

We then dropped into the church nearby which is catholic, with much guilding around the altar contrasting with the simpler protestant churches we’ve seen.

By complete contrast, further up the road we passed a much smaller modern evangelical protestant church (or Temple as they’re described here) with very striking stained glass imagery.

Next door there are remains of the Roman occupation of this area, which was a key trading route across the Alps and therefore strategically important for Julius Caesar. We later realised there is also a Roman forum here, and other important archaeological sites across the town. Another addition to our list for a future visit.

We were actually heading to see an exhibition of the work of renowned black-and-white photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson who had links with the local Gianadda family. The Pierre Gianadda Foundation runs a Gallo-Roman museum, a museum of vintage cars, a sculpture park, and a hall that is used for classical music concerts as well as art exhibitions. We only had time to look at the photographs and classic cars this visit, but the list of concerts looked very interesting with several internationally known artistes due to perform here over the next year. We haven’t dared check how much the tickets would cost.

Back to the hotel for an afternoon siesta, and then an early supper at a nearby restaurant rounded off our rest day.

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