Wood
Trip Start
Aug 23, 1996
1
540
561
Trip End
Ongoing
Loading Map
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
Troyes, Champagne-Ardenne, France
Monday, May 28, 2012
Now this year, we undertook a Camino starting from Seville, but for most people, they start at the border of France and Spain, but you can also take a step back and there are 4 towns in France that the traditionalists start from. Arles, Le Puy, Vezelay and Paris, and as Vezelay was along the way, we decided to stop in.
Vezelay is a walled town with, as to be expected, a huge cathedral. We had a quick walk around, and then found the pilgrims office, where we went in and swapped tales about ours and their caminos.
And then we moved on
We needed to find a place to sleep, and Lucy read up about Troyes, and as it sounded it good, we headed on over.
Basically, it is a town with wooden half buildings everywhere. They had been fully covered, for a long long time, and then finally, somebody woke up and thought, wow, tourist attraction, lets uncover !!! It was nice, so we rode around shooting as much as possible, both in the evening and the following morning.
The next stop was a place we had been before and that was Rheims. I wasted to see the cathedral, the place where the old Kings of France were crowned, whereas Lucy was only interested in champagne !!! So we did the right thing
1st Cathedral
2nd Champagne !!!
Now Belgium really isn't far from there, well a couple of hundred Ks, so we decided to fuck off and head over to Iper, where the chocolates pour like rain and lunch would be a couple of croque monsieurs, but once we found the old cheese factory, it was closed as it was a Monday. In Iper, we grabbed a Flemish stew instead, and then we found our favourite chocolate store was closed, so that the time to leave
There was one place left to visit, and it was back in France, Fromelles.
We had been here before to see the various WW1 monuments, but in 2010, a new cemetery had been opened as a load of bodies had been found from the battle of Fromelles, dna samples from relatives in Australia were taken, names were put to bodies, and bodies were finally laid to rest. As usual, there were the stories to be told. Two brothers found in the mass grave together, were buried side by side. It was nice, we were the only ones there, and as I walked around, only one thought came into my head, as it always does. WHY. Well I do know why as we have crossed the bridge in Sarajevo that Franz Ferdinand couldn't, but still.................
It was time to leave, so we did a quick wine run before we jumped on the train and headed back.
