Monday, October 31, 2011

Day 86. Saintes Oct 31 2001.

Halloween. The dark night has closed in around us, but nothing roams the streets.

Based on the sight of a single pamphlet we have come to Saintes hoping to see the wonderous Gallo-Roman ruins. We set out from our well feathered nest early, our tent, bikes and bodies bedecked with dew. Leaving was hard. It has become harder every day that we are in a comfortable spot, the unknown ahead of us.

The trip back into Rochefort was quick, if a little confused and we saw in passing anything that we might have missed on our previous visits. The library, the war memorial, the thermal baths (flying a Canadian flag, among others) and some of the town wall. I was enthralled, there is no other word, by the industrial port as we passed by. Enormous freighters filled the small space. The only entrance or exit was a lock that seemed no more than two or three of my body lengths across. It was impossible to visualize the delicate skill that must be needed to maneuver in such a space.

Last night Heather and I had stayed up late and watched as an empty freighter had chased the disappearing tide down the Charente river. The night had been inky black, the river so low the bottom was creating new rapids and the freighter has been so light in the water that its bow seemed to lift from the waves. We had watched with held breath expecting the vessel to run aground at any moment or crush one of the tiny fiberglass pleasure craft beneath its steel hull. Nothing happened and the ship gradually disappeared down the river, heading for open ocean. The sheer weight of such a vessel on such a small river is breathtaking, a whale in a fishpond.

After leaving the city the ride had little in it worth writing about. The countryside was mostly flat, the road well traveled but not too busy. We passed a few vineyards and could not help but notice that they rose a little higher here, closer to how we envisioned them. But we did not stop. We were pursued by a dark cloud that bruised the sky and just as we reached the boundary of Saintes it began to rain. We biked down what seemed to be the main street and were unimpressed. The city was gray. The rain let up but still threatened. We stopped at a map and were unenlightened by it. No mention of our hostel anywhere. We stopped at the tourist office, it was closed from noon to two, then after five. So tired were we that we assumed it must be after five. I found a small map with our destination marked on it so we set out, down the long slope towards the Charente river.

We crossed and found a massive Roman arch, the Arch of Germanicus, the ancient entry to the town’s Roman bridge. Its sheer bulk was impressive, the physical presence of long dead Romans made manifest in cracked and pitted stone.




We stopped to read its scant information then hurried on to our hostel. It too was closed, opening after 5. Our exhaustion had played with our minds, it was hardly after 1 o'clock in the afternoon. We had hours to wait.

We sat and ate lunch and I read to Heather. Scarcely had I finished the first page when a lady approached us from the hostel and asked if we wanted a room for the night. At that moment our gloom lifted. Not in a physical fashion, it was still blustery outside, leaves whipped in a frenzy across the lawn, but our gloom had not been physical, more the constant pain of readjustment we felt every time we pulled up roots and left a city. We stowed our things in a room much like La Rochelle but with carpet and comforting brick wall that changed cold into warmth and gave the room a certain intrigue, as if we had set up camp in the warmest most comfortable back alley in existence.

We rested for a while and then set out to see Saintes. The city's name comes, oddly enough, not from any medieval Saints who may have dwelt there but instead from the tribe of Romanized Gauls who had built it, the Santones.

We found an abbey next to our hostel and walked its covered walkway. L'Abbey aux Dames, a cluniac nunnery with an almost beehive shaped bell tower. Tours of the inside were offered but at a price, a price paid more for an exhibit of French photographers’ works than for the abbey. We passed.



We walked back towards the river and discovered a park tucked neatly away. We went in and walked beneath green boughs while young lovers courted and kissed on benches, looking up in annoyance as we walked by and disturbed them.

We passed, to our surprise, the Lapidary Museum of Saintes, a small building that housed the greater portion of the Roman statues found in the city, their intricate carvings almost faded to nothingness with the ravages of time. The prize of the collection was the torso of a Julio-Claudian prince, bathing in a soft golden light while ancient stone muscles flexed in a posture frozen by age.



A marble of classic proportions in a room of decaying stones and headless torsos, all excavated from the fragments of the city wall the inhabitants of Mediolanum Santonum threw together in a panicked haste to ward off the barbarian hordes. They had pulled down the forum and the baths and the houses of the rich and poor alike in their terror.

We stopped again at the grandeur of the arch and admired its power even in decay. But we had more of the city to explore. Tomorrow was All Saints Day, a religious holiday in France and we don't now what will be open. We crossed the river once more and followed tiny medieval streets to the Cathedral of St Peter. The cathedrals clock tower loomed over the city. It seemed as though it had been built in stages, each stage piled atop the other, like some Egyptian step pyramid transported to the western coast of France. St. Peters was like dozens of other flamboyant gothic cathedrals we had visited, the outside a beautiful series of flying buttresses. What shocked us was the stores and shops that had nestled between the foundations of each buttress. The cathedrals main walls forming the back walls of beauty salons, galleries and private residences.

Next we followed the marked path to the Roman Arena that had brought us here. We followed streets that narrowed and grew rough beneath our feet. We passed the manicured beauty of the L'Hotel de Ville into coarse alleyways and stairs that seemed to climb the walls of houses to the rooftops of the city many times over, only to descend into a valley once more.

The Arena lay at the head of a valley, along a wide swath of grass that had once been the main roman road, so that the gladiators could march down in a dazzling public spectacle. The Arena was amazing, even from behind locked gates closed for the night. The stones seemed alive in their decay, as if infused with centuries of bloodlust and excitement. I longed to clamber over the iron bars blocking my way and race among the ruins. Instead we left, vowing to return tomorrow.

We followed the signs leading to the church of St. Eutrope and its famous (although unknown to us) crypt, a milestone on the pilgrimage to Compostella. The altar had been dedicated by Urban II in 1096.


The church was darkly beautiful, lost in shadow, the crypt lost to sight. Urban's face gazed down from stained glass windows in a beatific peace, irony in glass. We went out and walked around; looking for the crypt, but found nothing. The clock tower rose above our heads, sheathed in scaffolding that made it echoed the layered temples of the far east, an unintended symbol of ecumenical outreach.

We dropped back to the Charente again, the highway the Vikings had followed in search of pillage and plunder. Fishermen lined its tranquil banks. The fish were wise to the devious plans of those with rods and clustered in schools of schools that chased and fed on another in the shallows on our side, away from the rods and hooks, their silver underbelly's flashing as they climbed the road of the pier in search of other fish. It grew dark and as cold as the October night it was. No ghouls, ghosts or goblins emerged to torment us, either in search of candy or earthly recognition. Instead clusters of young girls puffed rebelliously on cigarettes while nearby boys watched and waited for the cool moment to saunter over with the requisite "feu" We bought our dinner for tonight and tomorrow and walked home, glad to be out of the cold, for tonight at least.



Next Entry: Day 87. Saintes
Previous Entry: Day 85. Rochefort

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