A day by the Loir

A day off by the Loir in Vendôme. My first sight of Vendôme, coming over the hills to the northwest and then the view of the town from the ruined chateau high up above the other side of the river. 

The Loir bifurcates at Vendôme and the neat, pretty old centre is built on what is in effect a series of islands in between the two main channels. 

Vendôme suffered a major bombardment in June '44 that destroyed a chunk of the old centre (the target presumably having been the bridges). But a great deal remains. Here is the building housing the Hotel de Ville, dating from the mid 17th century. For many years it was a school, which Balzac attended. 

Finally, a couple of photos for the lepidopterists, taken in a meadow alongside a tributary of the Loir on my way into Vendôme. I have convinced myself that the first is a Heath Fritillary and that the second is Granville Fritillary, both of which one would be lucky to see in England. But I'm happy to be corrected!

Moving southwards

The first vines! Looking back at the village of Trôo in the distance on the masculine river Loir, a tributary of the feminine Loire (eventually, via the Sarthe). Other evidence of moving further south is a couple of sightings of a Swallowtail butterfly, each time too elusive to photograph. 

Trôo is built on the steep valley side, very pretty with troglodyte remains and most of the houses done up. But all I want is breakfast after a night under the stars that I had not planned (the Moon, Jupiter and Venus alone in the sky in a perfect line as I go to bed) and several miles walk in to the village. And all Trôo had to offer is this.

A baguette machine! Surely not the future of rural France - no bar, no boulangerie? So it's another few miles to Montoire-sur-le-Loir where I call it a day. (Sadly, Montoire is best known as being the place where Marshal Pétain shook hands with Adolf Hitler in October 1940 and agreed to collaborate.) But Trôo did produce the first of these photos of carts that I've been taking over the last week. 

This last one also shows some of the distinctive building style of the area I've passed through in the south of the Orne, the east of the Sarthe, and the west of the Loir-et-Cher departments. The mixing of brick and stone in doorways, the alternating colours of bricks (less evident in this photo) and decorative patterning underneath the roof line. 

This is about the most extreme example of the brickwork that I've seen!

Memories of another war

Back in Normandy, the obvious memories and signs of war were all of WWII. But on moving deeper into rural France, it is WWI that one keeps being reminded of. France's total war dead of about 1.4 million greatly exceeded that of Britain, despite having a smaller population. Each village has its little war memorial and the vast bulk of names are from 1914-18. The first one below may seem rather garish but any fault lies with the photo - the painted soldier seemed to add a human touch.

Even very small villages often have 20 or 30 names from 1914-18. The memorial in Vibraye, a larger village of 2,600 people, has about 120. The side you can see in the picture lists only those from 1914.  (The plaque at bottom left puzzled me - Captain Malcolm Smith, May 1944. Investigation reveals he was a US pilot of a P47 Thunderbolt who came down nearby.)

I ask in the Mairie what Vibraye's population was at the outbreak of WWI. About 2,900, not much different to now. (The impacts since then of large overall population growth in France and of rural depopulation roughly cancelling out.) Hence the Vibraye WWI dead represented about 1 in 7 or 1 in 8 of what I think would have been the male population over the age of 18. And not so long ago. My generation could have talked with grandfathers and great-uncles about their WWI experience. If they had been prepared to talk about it, which this poster underlines was often not the case.

 

The lovely little village of Montmirail (from 'mons mirabilis') had a modern war memorial. From a distance Montmirail, with its castle built to defend the Chartres - Le Mans trade route, seemed like a Tuscan hilltop town.

And a wonderfully inviting hollow way, up to 10 feet deep in places, to lead me out of the village down the hill. 

Nature

Yesterday I heard a nightingale for the first time and again in the afternoon and this morning. They were thick around us in our years in Italy but I have not heard one in Hampshire. Then a pair of red squirrels at the edge of a chestnut wood. Butterflies have not been in large supply other than ubiquitous Speckled Woods and the odd Brimstone and Painted Lady in the forest rides several days ago. I think this tiddler is a Small Heath. 

And larger fauna too, a few deer, lots of badger setts and these friendly faces at the side of the road - three looked very pregnant but maybe they had just been eating too much. 

Yesterday evening would have produced a good photo of a herd of cows defending a river bank as I tried to cross on stepping stones. And of a sign in English by the river saying 'crocodiles - no swimming' placed by the owner who had made a good attempt to block off the path. But I was in no mood for taking photos as it was late and I still had three miles to go to La Ferté Bernard where I had a bed for the night. As partial substitute here is a sign to a farm this morning. I think 'Fang Farm' is a rough translation, shades of Stella Gibbons. 

And another herd of cows from today's lunch spot in a field of buttercups. 

A night in the open

South-East out of Alençon there is another big forested ridge to cross - la forêt de Perseigne. Lots of evidence of recent logging, whether cleared sections or stacks of wood - oak on the left and pine on the right. 

Here's the view looking back having emerged in the late afternoon. Lots of buttercups still and the sound of turtle doves churring, rare in England now. 

There's no bed to be found so the sleeping bag comes out for the first time. A beautiful still evening, photo taken from where I stop at the side of the track. 

Too still - flies! And the clouds come over so it's too hot. But the wind picks up and the clouds roll away and by 3am there is a wonderful view of the night sky - when it's like this, sleeping out can't be better, all the stars above from the snug of one's sleeping bag. It's grey again in the morning but only a few miles down to Mamers for breakfast. The old wheat market in the square. 

Were I to stay a couple more days I could go to the trotting at the hipperdrome. 

Not bad for a town of only 5,000. And I saw at least four boulangeries around the main square. Here's the priory church down a side street with its huge porch covering double doors. 

A day off

Alençon. Andrew leaves to take the train to Paris and home. Here he is while we take a breather after a stiff climb. And then, on another day, powering up a wonderful sunken track from an abandoned village deep in the Orne valley in the Suisse Normande (ahead of me as usual..). The dreaded yellow rucksack cover peeks out in both photos.

 

The rucksack cover came in handy on a day of repeated heavy showers as we made our way to Alençon. The town seemed dead when we arrived in the late afternoon. But the next day all is changed. It's market day! The cheeses on the stall in the foreground are among the largest I've ever seen. 

I spent a very pleasant afternoon wandering the streets of this town of about 30,000. An impressive mixture of architectural styles and a compact well preserved centre. Here are the basilica of Notre Dame and the 17th century Prefecture. 

The roof of the lovely round 1801 wheat market looks modern but it is over 150 years old. 

And here is Pont Neuf over the river Sarthe from which the surrounding Department takes its name. It was across this bridge that General Leclerc and the Free French liberated Alençon in August '44. 

Across a watershed

From the sign of the green lion in Putanges we moved in a shortish day to the sign of the golden lion in Écouché (where we were equally comfortable). And in doing so left, reluctantly, the Suisse Normande. Écouché was heavily bombed on D-day (motive, the railway line?) and a large part of the village was destroyed. But the big church escaped serious damage. 

From Écouché the way is to the south, across a wide shallow valley of the Orne and its tributaries before a steady pull up through the immense forest which we are in for several hours - le Foret d'Écouves. Here there is a significant watershed. The rivers will now run to the Atlantic rather than the Channel. Oak, beech, birch and pine with the constant sound of Cuckoos and Wood Warblers. 

The tiny chapel of St Jean des Bois in the middle of the woods, its inside covered in plaques of pilgrims' thanks to the saint. 

Signs along the way

 The most common sign each day is the red and white paint flashes of the Grand Randonnée, thé long distance footpath - on gate or fence posts (see the last blog entry), walls, trees or large stones. They are typically frequent and well placed. But there are plenty of other signs. Here's one on the side of the track at the edge of a wood, from three years after Waterloo. Marking the boundary of someone's property perhaps?

Plenty of signs about hunting rights and fishing. I liked this one - on Fridays one can eat them but not catch them!

Then there are the 'private - keep out' signs that one gets in any country. One we saw spoke of 'danger - traps' (pièges) in a dark unspecified way. Man traps? But this one makes it very clear: anti-personnel mines if I have understood properly!

Coming down a long track to a road yesterday we found a cafe in a hamlet with this sign - no muddy boots :(  - but it was shut so our only opportunity for morning coffee had gone anyway alas..

However here's a welcome sign this evening after 16 or 17 miles on a sunny day with once more a wonderful combination of paths, tracks and lanes and fields, woods and streams. The sign of the green lion in Putanges where beer, baths, and a good dinner restores everything. 

Into the countryside

Out of Caen, our way continues to trace the river Orne. 'Our' as on this first week I have old friend Andrew with me (and his yellow rucksack cover that a future post may have to reveal..) We follow the GR36, one of the long distance footpaths that crisscross France. 

The Orne is a deep valley that cuts through the Suisse-Normande, a low hilly plateau that quickly offers what seems deepest France. Here's an alpine looking church that lives up to the area's surprising name. 

The walking is a delicious mixture of riverside paths, quiet country lanes, a disused railway ('la voie verte', popular with the Caen citizenry), woods, field edges and tracks - many dripping with hawthorn in flower. 

This is the view coming down to Clecy, two days out from Caen in the heart of the Suisse-Normande. The photo fails to do justice to the panorama!

And here is the river and a fisherman from a Clecy B&B window. 

Normandy landing

Ouistreham, from the ferry.. Editor: wait a minute, that's not Ouistreham that's Le Havre! Indeed it is - a port strike has led the ferry to divert so it's a chance to appreciate Auguste Perret's rebuilding of war-battered Le Havre. 'Concrete is beautiful' he apparently said and in this case I agree. Then it's a minibus to take us foot passengers to Ouistreham. 

My father's arrival at Ouistreham in June '44 was very different. Ouistreham is at the eastern end of Sword Beach and D-Day was his birthday. 

My father was a ship's doctor on the big tank landing craft above. His work began on the return leg when the tanks had gone. One of his other little black and white photos shows the vast hold full of the wounded. They might be seen as the lucky ones. Close to Ouistreham in the little village of Ranville is a war cemetery of British and German graves. Beautifully kept and deeply moving. One wanders the rows of graves reading the names, ages - some only 18 or 19 - regiments, and dates of death, from 6 June onwards.

And then up the river Orne and its parallel canal to Caen. Only three or four hours on foot but it took the Allies a month. Poor Caen took an immense battering in the meantime and the guidebooks are not kind. But the mix of old and new has some charm and when you are puffed and hungry it all looks good. The wires in this picture are of the impressive trolley bus network.