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

Day 85. Rochefort Oct 30 2001.

Today is another "stay with the tent and do nothing" day, so I will continue with yesterdays saga.

From the Corderie we went outside and walked the Gardens of Return, a modern replica of the gardens that had existed here in the yards heyday. The plants represented all the flora of distant lands visited by the French navy. The area had been left to rot after the yards were abandoned and the fire set by the Nazis had been the last insult. The entire complex was rebuilt after 1960's. We walked the lawns and a path through the trees and found the rigging area, a pair of masts rising high against a brilliant blue sky.



We walked out of the garden towards the pleasure port, past the four star hotel. Next to it was a burned out hulk of a building, rotting with age, filled with broken wine bottles and ceramic jugs. The pleasure port was full of boats but empty of people and we left quickly. Kinda creepy.

The spiders are out in full force weaving strands of spider's silk across impossible distances and crawling into everything. Our bikes, our backpacks, our hair.

We found a phone to call home, our weekly check in, but a Frenchman asked if he could use it first, swearing that he only needed it for a minute. Ten minutes later we left, seeking another phone. We found a trio of phone boxes in a square not two feet away, in the shadow of St. Louis's church, a columned building recessed from the street, done in Roman style. We chatted with my parents, shocked to discover that, on a day in which it had become too hot for us to wear our jeans and long sleeved t-shirts, it had snowed at home.

As Heather took her turn at the phone I watched the life of the square around us. A fountain splashed with life in the centre. A young couple made out in the shadow of a tree. An old man sat on the edge of the fountain while a young baby almost fell in only to be scolded by his frightened mother. Old men fed birds while old women read the news or watched me watching them. The sidewalk cafes bustled with life. The couple got up and left, the girl cuffing the boy as his gaze wandered to the life sized, almost nude, ads in the lingerie shop across from us. The square seemed full of life. People with lives to lead, leading them. Even we seemed a perfect part of the picture, a tourist couple, dressed the part, calling home to reassure worried parents, while we secretly collapsed from exhaustion. I half expected a Hollywood director to scream cut and everything to freeze. But it never happened.

We hung up and walked into the church, good tourists that we were. But we were very tired and the sun had almost completed it's tiny arc across the sky and the church, despite it's impressive exterior, had almost crumbled to nothing inside, given glory only by it's elaborate altar.

We returned home via the Pont Transborder, which I discovered has been translated as the "aerial ferry." Built in 1908 instead of 1901, by Ferdinand Arnodin. An impressive idea, impressively executed, that now fails to impress. Poor Ferdinand.

The ride home is much like the ride out, though we do encounter a crew paving the cycle paths, who stare with consternation as I almost ride into their newly laid patch of tar. Whether worried about me or their tar, I don't know. We try to follow the path through the marshes as long as possible, a plan that leads to us getting trapped when the path ran out and forced us to climb a ditch back onto the road we had been trying to avoid. We arrived at our tent, to a campground full of people, and we felt good even if a little tired. It is nice to share a campground with people and know that we are not totally insane.

A group of four men play boules beside our site, in fact they are doing it now as I write, a ritual of unknown antiquity played out in endless repetitions. We try to go out for a walk after the sun has set but the mist is too thick. We are driven back to our campsite which is soon covered in a sheen of water as the night sweats. We talk about faith and spirituality and the order of the universe.

I postulate a universe surrounded by a god so complex as to make the ordeal of understanding the Trinity child's play by comparison while a satellite flies its path through the nether regions of the constellation Cassiopeia. Somewhere God giggles.

Today has been the antithesis of yesterday. We have done almost nothing. I walked slowly out to the end of the our small dock and scribbled a few lines and gave up, instead standing to watch the dock writhe in the wake of a cargo freighter as it makes its way to the ocean. I work some more sitting at the table, watching the sun descend too quickly once more. We went in to town to buy groceries and for the twentieth time I marvel at the seafood counter. I played with the clams snapping in their search for food, unaware of any irony in their actions. I watched as some shellfish crawled from his shell and tried to escape his basket prison, sure that if he survived, I would be watching evolution at work.

We flipped through the posters. French absorption of American pop culture is a few years behind Canada, so everything was just a touch out of date. But what caught our attention most were the world maps and how far we have yet to go. Rome didn't seem so far away when we were in Canada. A pamphlet describing Lafayette tells that it took him 38 days to join Washington in American and lend his aid. 38 days means so much more now. 38 days on a cramped wood and hemp and cloth ship. I wonder if it was better than a tiny tent and a leather seat.

Next Entry: Day 86. Saintes
Previous Entry: Day 84. Rochefort

Day 84. Rochefort. Oct 29 2001.

Today was a very busy day and I faced it in exhaustion. The problem with living by the sunlight is the unnatural hours it imposes. How strange that sounds! But last night, for example, we went to bed no later than 7PM. Even considering that we got up no later than 8AM this morning we still lay in bed for 13 hours. Despite occasional accusations that I am lazy, even I found this to be too much. But what can I do? After dark all our activity stops. It's impossible to write, to read, even going for a walk is an insecure activity at best. I'd thought to reserve activities that don't need sunlight, like showering, until dark but by then it's too cold and such a mist rises off the river that I don't dry until midway thought the next day. Anyway, an upshot of this is the fact that I spent half the night lying awake and staring at the ceiling of our tent. By the time the sun rose I was about as exhausted as I was just before climbing into bed.

We rose, dressed in warm clothes, because the misty morning was chill, and rode into town. We had a few goals. We had read a brief book on the Corderie Royale and the old arsenal, so that was on our list and we had seen advertisements for Rochefort’s ancient transborder bridge. Great. The only problem was that we had no idea how to find them. We set out blindly, almost randomly choosing directions, always trying to follow the river and head towards the centre of town. Soon we found ourselves on a major road between the town and marshland, a great concrete crescent of a bridge rising before us, a military airfield at our side. We turned aside just before the bridge and followed a well worn path into the marshes, stagnant canals so thick with algae that they looked paved flat, that paralleled us on either side. A swan sat in one, seeming frozen in by the stagnant waters, perfect white feathers stopping abruptly at the algae line.

Ahead of us loomed a massive structure of girders, cantilevers and cables that covered the river. At first we couldn't make it out, then it seemed like an enormous industrial crane, and then we were there. The structure was in fact the bridge. An enormous iron temple. Two metal pylons rose on either side of the river supporting a track high above the highest ships. The "bridge" was in fact a flat open aired cable car with a deck for carriages and seats for people. Completed in 1901,it was a centennial celebration mirroring the structure of the Eiffel tower. It was a modern celebration of steel and cable and girders.

We eventually followed the bike path around to the streets, found the municipal campground, conveniently left out of my Michelin guide, and eventually found Rochefort's docks.




I must admit to disappointment. The first artifact we encountered at the docks was the Napoleon III drydocks. It was famous as a Floating Entrance Drydock. The entrance would be blocked by the hull of a ship. When the tide came in the ship floated out of the way, whichever ship was to be repaired sailed in, the blockade ship was returned to a set of grooved tracks, tide went out, the blockade sank and was ballasted down to block in the entrance. Simple and elegant, tried for the first time at this drydock. But all that remained was a huge ship-shaped hole in the ground, bottom filled with slime and water, sides overgrowing with moss. The floating barricade was a rusting hulk scarcely identifiable as a ship. The only thing keeping water out was a new earthen embankment cutting the drydock off from the river.

Next to the dock a great white plastic hutment covering the entire waterfront, looking distincly unimpressive. We walked to the front. This was the site of the reconstruction of the French frigate Hermione.




We walked into the huge plastic hutment and things changed. Great wooden ribs rosed from the floor to the ceiling and the overwhelming sensation of creation filled the air. The presence of a ship being birthed by human hands was palpable. The ship had a form so obviously feminine that questions about why ships are called "she" or her" were relegated to the bin of obsolescence.



Planking rose from the floor to the heights like the desiccated ribs of a mammoth sea creature but unlike the decay of death, flesh flowed onto the ribs, building almost through the force of human will, a living thing. There was no pall of death before this skeletal figure, but the energy of an idea that flowed and crackled between dried wooden planks. The Hermione was unborn, a schrodingers box of potential more than anything else, but already it seemed to strain at invisible moorings.



The Hermione, the original, had served to ferry the French Lafayette to the American George Washington to discuss French support for the American revolution, making this version a palpable symbol of French-American friendship. We walked slowly through the site, enjoying the smell of fresh cut wood and the sight of a ship being born. Plans call for the Hermione to sail to Boston in 2007. Perhaps we can meet it there.
From the Hermione we walked the old arsenal, reentering the Port of the Sun. The centerpiece of the old shipyards was the Corderie Royale, the massive structure built for the purpose of spinning the millions of miles of rope for the French Navy.



The building was unique,. It was an H that spanned an entire meadow, the crosspiece almost ten times longer than the sides. Curving buttresses held up the long two storey high wall. The entrance was through the sides. and again we walked into another world.
During the age of fighting sail rope was needed in such abundance that it dwarfed the need for trained men or good wood. Spun from hemp and soaked in the tar made from the resin of burned pine trees rope was the lifeblood of the sailing navies. We learned a history that we had not even considered in the long half of the rope factory. The walls were decorated with twisted cords of rope in the hundreds of different sized required and to the centre was a huge beastly machine of black iron that spun rope in ways that even after a dozen demonstrations seems bizarre to me.



But the corderie also had displays of ship building and recreated a fascinating world new to us from our landlocked home. That ships were always buildt in drydocks facing north - south so that the sun beat on both sides equal seems an obscure but logical enough fact, but that every two or three years the navy would haul out the heaviest ships, push them on to their sides on dry land and burn off all the barnacles, old tar and caulking with enormous fires seemed truly bizarre.

Rochefort it seems had been a perfect shipyard for the French. Far enough inland to be protected from assault by the sea, at a crossroads for food, wood, rope, it rebuilt a navy that had been in serious decline since Richelieu.

The previous owner of the area, a Protestant lord with little support at court in a time of Catholic extremism, had disappeared completely after protesting against the building of the shipyards. He was avenged, in the end, by the Nazi's, who torched the entire complex when they were forced out by the allies less than sixty years ago.

Next Entry: Day 85. Rochefort
Previous Entry: Day 83. Rochefort

Day 83. Rochefort. Oct 28 2001.

Another day with a beautiful sleep to precede it. The more of these I have, the happier I will be. Today is a day of respite from travel and sightseeing. We sat on the banks of the Charente River
and watched the boats sail by.

To see the actions of a tidal river was a real eye opener for me. The mechanics are well known, the effects so myriad and diverse in their subtlety. When tide flows in the flow of the river ceases, coming to slow and languid stop as though entering the still waters of a lake. Then silently, slowly, the current reverses, flows upstream in a seeming defiance of nature. With inexorable slowness the yachts, catamarans and pleasure craft that fill the river begin to turn. Previously they had all faced upstream, bows cutting the flow of the river with the uniform singularity of soldiers at attention. But the flow swings them slowly around, until eventually they all face downstream with the same precision. Ducks float back on the current they had ridden down, seemingly bewildered by this turn of events. The water rises rapidly and quickly reaches a peak, then, with infinite patience, stops. The waters come to a standstill, swirling whichever direction takes their fancy. For a few hours the river in truth becomes a lake. Then the downstream current reasserts its supremacy. The waters begin to flow; the lake becomes a river once more. The current slowly picks ups, faster and faster until it borders on a torrent as the tide is sucked back out to the sea until the river drains an becomes a stream, brooding in it’s muddy bed. We wake as the river is filing and we sit on the docks to watch the creeping waterline and the passing boats.

The day becomes hot, too hot for late October, but we enjoy the heat, letting it soak into us for future needs. I try to tan, to color my pasty pale belly but it no use. White or red are my options. The day itself is lazy. Even the air seems to feel it. The wind blows listlessly, if at all. The sun seems to hang in the sky as I write and Heather draws. The sound of Heather’s pen against paper is an out of place sound that makes a soothing counterpoint to the bubble and swish of water beneath the dock.

Tomorrow we shall have to get up and explore this soothing city. Today, however, proved perfect for our rest.

Next Entry: Day 84. Rochefort
Previous entry: Day 82. Rochefort

Day 82. Rochefort. Oct 27 2001.

Writing on a floating dock on a muddy river that disappears into grass and the sunset, that is Rochefort. Watching a tidal river receded, leaving behind mud and muck while youth cycle by and sing off key, that is Rochefort. Rochefort is a town built in 1666 when the French king and his advisers decided to found an Atlantic shipbuilding port to rival Brest. A city on a spit of land where its tidal river flows to the sea, that is Rochefort. And Rochefort is a city chosen because we like its name and the fact that it has a year round campground more than anything else.

We woke early. Earlier than our alarm and we walked in a desultory fashion to get our breakfast. The only different today was yogurt instead of fruit cups. I piled my tray high with breadrolls and jams until the staff asked me to leave something for the others. I almost asked why they would want it but bit my tongue. We ate in silence, an island of quietude in a room that filled to capacity mere minutes after we walked in to the deserted chamber. We stashed away honey this time, not quite ready for the wholesale plundering recommended by Dawn and Julie, but not all that far from it anymore.

We headed south and found a supermarket to stock up on food, after which we had to backtrack roughly ten kilometers before we could cross the autoroute, a path that forced us to do a huge U across the French countryside. We joked that we were writing a huge word across France. The path let us see the beautiful marshy park on La Rochelle’s east side and pass through a series of innovative, and very ugly, apartment complexes. The must be a French law demanding that anything less than a hundred years old be ugly enough to peel paint.

We stopped for lunch at a roadside turnout, a few picnic benches above a horse trough. Heather’s strange charm worked it’s magic once more and before we had begun our second sandwich an old man on bikeback appeared, as if out of nowhere, and began to regale us with his life story in French so fast and idiomatic that I caught maybe one word out of ten. Pausing only to pull down his pants, step back five paces and pee in plain view, he proceeded to explain exactly what was wrong with children these days, why the Germans are so rude and what he wanted from Santa Claus. Why he even thought we could understand him I don’t know as we spent the entire conversation nodding and sidling towards out bikes. At the first break in the stream of words we leapt astride out bikes and pedaled faster than we’d ever done before. We should thank him really, we made it to Rochefort in record time.

Typical for us we came into the city on the industrial side where we were greeted by long ugly warehouses, the garbage dump and huge piles of timber ready to be shipped, reminding us strongly of our trip to Prince Rupert. Our campground proved to be on the far side of the city and is less than inspiring. Not even the huge concrete ship that served as washrooms impressed us. But there are other people camping here and we feel less alone than we have in a while. We set up camp and watch the sailing school on the tidal river beside us. Tiny boats with tiny sails, close enough to see the sailors. It was great fun to watch them tack across the current and gasp in surprise as their tiny boats capsize. Getting them upright by jumping up and down on the keel is a tactic I would have never thought of.

Suddenly remembering that today is Saturday and that stores are closed on Sunday we bike to the Intermarche to stock up on food. We are stopped by a bevy of grotesque youth at the front door, celebrating the mall’s version of Halloween. They are fascinated by our bikes and ask us questions in French that we cannot hope to comprehend. Finally they loose interest in the inanimate and turn their curiosity to the riders, puzzled by our stilted language skills. They swarm us like flies. Remembering guidebooks warnings about pickpockets in groups I clutch my wallet with determination but there is nothing sinister in this group, they are merely fascinated by the aliens in their midst. Finally we manage to break away and find refuge in the crowded supermarket.

The seafood counter is once again a wonder. I don’t think I will tire of seeing fresh clams and oysters and fish lying on a bed of ice. Too bad we have no way of cooking them.

For the rest of the evening we settle on the campgrounds dock and read and feel the tide go out beneath us. The sea of grass across from us barely moves and everyone going down the river waves cheerfully as they pass by. The sun has begun to set so early now, our days circumscribed by the arc it cuts across the sky. The sun dies spectacularly this night, a blazing fireball extinguishing itself in grass and water. The clouds are thin lines, like surf on a liquid sky, coming in slow languid waves with no breeze to blow them on. The water becomes a golden fire as we sit. We don’t turn away until the only light left is a faint glimmering between the grasses. Tonight felt very peaceful, a tranquil rest undreamed of at the youth hostel. We worry less about the future and bathe in the now. I think we will stay in Rochefort for a couple of days at least. I can’t speak for the rest of the city, but it is beautiful by the river.

We are, I must admit, a little nervous about the coming of Halloween. We don’t want to get caught up in mischief with only our tent to shield us. But it is a few days away and it remains to be seen if we will still be here, or in the youth hostel at Saintes. We have thought about going out, dressed as Canadians…on bikes.

Next Entry: Day 83. Rochefort
Previous Entry: Day 81. La Rochelle

Day 81. La Rochelle Oct 26 2001.

Breakfast was joke. Not a quick slap on the knee joke, but a comic farce that was elaborately staged and set, delivered by unsmiling kitchen staff who had missed their calling as straight men for an army of comedians. “Why?” it was asked by a bevy of puzzled hostellers, “Why is there a menu, when our choice is between sauced apples and apple sauce, sliced baguette or a baguette in slices?" With a choice, it must be added in fairness to the hostel, between minuscule containers of jam or microscopic containers of honey. But we were given a full choice of drinks; water with our orange juice, or orange juice – watered down. The hot chocolate was a hit with the desperately hungry inmates sopping up the dregs with stale bread, desperate to preserve every drop of flavor. The offered cereal and yogurt never materialized and the only toast was dried bread left in the sunlight. To quote Mel Brooks: “What a world.”

The hostel was crowded and some of the youth seemed barely into their teens, how they could afford to travel a mystery. They filled the cafeteria and the front office but seemed strangely absent elsewhere. I got a strange feeling from them, as if they were at the hostel because it was cool and not because of any real travel needs. The same way as adolescents we would tune in to the university radio station and read the Gauntlet, not really understanding the content but sure in our hearts that if university students did it, it must be cool.

We left quickly, leaving almost everything in three stainless steel drawers locked by our feeble locks. We followed the boardwalk back into town, enjoying the sound of calmly lapping water broken by the ringing of bells or the slap of steel cables against metal masts as a breeze swept through. By the maintenance shed of the pleasure port a great orange beast of a machine had lowered its slings into the water and we paused to watch as it hoisted a small dis-masted craft from the water, its owners watching anxiously. The boat broke contact with the water hesitantly and looked forlorn as it rocked in its cradle, dripping water like tears. Behinds us boats of all description lay in hard metal cradles and shed water like artificial rain as proud proprietors cleaned and scrubbed and painted.

There was an air of activity, as if being near their boats made the owners feel more alive and they scrubbed with an enthusiasm that made it seem more pleasure than chore. Something about the sea air perhaps. We passed slowly, reluctantly, as if wanting to partake of their energy and by the time we passed we felt more awake and revived.

The Saint Nicholas tower leaned over us like a drunken soldier of fortified tower of Pisa. A long walk up the stair of the rampart walls brought us to the office, a space filling the second floor and reached by crossing an ancient wooden drawbridge. The center of the room was a stone circle around open air, covered by glass and looking down on the first floor, closed now as it was too dangerous to visit. Above us a similar eye looked down. We were given a badly translated guide in English and left to our own devices. We climbed the stairs and found ourselves in the governor’s chamber, a large circular room occupying the centre of the structure, an ornate carved merchant’s ship of stone hanging over the fireplace.

The governor of the tower swore never to leave the building during his tenure and was paid with a portion of the profits from every ship that entering the port. Around this room was a series of modern collages detailing the first exploration of the Mississippi. As France's largest Atlantic port La Rochelle is, appropriately enough, obsessed with the New World and many of the new world’s explorers have set out from the area.

The displays led us in a ring to the stairs that climbed higher to the roof and we followed the hallways that cut through the walls like mites in worm’s tunnels. Everywhere was ancient graffiti, much of it religious. La Rochelle had seen some of the worst fighting in the Wars of Religion and was once France's strongest Protestant stronghold. The stairway to the Protestant dungeon had long been walled up, to protect the governor and his family, so we took the stairs to the roof instead. The view from the roof was fantastic, looking out over the rooftops of La Rochelle or out to sea. A distant red pillar in the channel to open water marked the spot where Richelieu had built a massive dyke to cut off the Protestant La Rochelle from the rest of the world, especially aid from Great Britain. 20 000 French died of starvation in that siege and only 5 000 remained when the finally surrendered. 10 days later a tidal wave opened a breach large enough for the British ships to enter, too late.

From the main rooftop we climbed even higher to captain’s lookout. Even more impressive and a little nerve wracking. We could look out through the crenellations and see everything on down to the green water far below. Looking down on flying birds is an interesting experience. From here we could also look across and see the chain tower a stones throw away, closed for renovations. We climbed back down and explored a little. Tunnels honeycombed the main level so that the activity of the tower could continue without disturbing the governor’s family. One such tunnel widened unexpectedly into a small chapel, ornate once but now eroded with age. The font drained directly out of the building. From there stairs led down in a spiral so tight that my feet did not fully fit on the stairs, a bit of a dangerous descent. Then we were back in the office, the tour complete.

Just behind the desk was a giant iron rectangle bound in iron strips and studded with enormous bolts that held the thing together. The door was almost invisible so well did it blend in and was only discernible because of the hinges. The locking mechanism made no send sense at all and seemed almost like belt buckles. Not at all how I pictured a medieval safe.

A beautiful painting hung above it, Richelieu on his dyke. “siege de 1628, Richelieu sur la dique” by Henri Motte.

Our tour at an end we returned the guide and walked out into the city. We made out way to the Cathedral of St. Louis. From the outside it was ugly, a low bunkerlike building looking more like a train station than cathedral. Inside it was ugly too, except for the fantastic decoration that transformed ugly stone into mere frames for beauty. The church had been built over the ruins of a destroyed Protestant one in the 17th century. Richelieu’s final nail in the Protestant coffin. While it was being built they excavated the nave of a Templar church and displayed the vault covers and gravestone in a niche near the front. Eleanor of Aquitaine had granted the templar’s two tidal mills in La Rochelle.

From the church we wandered the streets aimlessly and found city hall, an old fortified building with an elaborate clock tower and a memorial from the second world war.

La Rochelle had been the centre of a massive Nazi submarine base and so had been the last place in France liberated. From city hall we walked into the gardens by the remains of the templar mills.

We are still undecided about our future. Do we continue on our journey or head home? Heather is feeling very homesick, but beyond family it doesn’t feel like I have much to return to.

Next Entry: Day 82. Rochefort
Previous Entry: Day 80. La Rochelle

Day 80. La Rochelle. Oct 25 2001

We hadn't actually intended to go to La Rochelle, our planned destination for today was Rochefort. But our plans are as changeable as the weather. Our eloquent host of the night before virtually insisted we go to La Rochelle and extolled its many beauties.

The ride into La Rochelle was long but probably easier than it felt to us. Marans proved harder to leave than to enter. We found the main road out easily enough but avoided it based on the advice of our host last night “It is shit, all the drivers are assholes.” He had been kind enough to point out an alternate route, following the La Rochelle-Marans canal. But the French have an interesting habit of changing street names and “La Rue De La Stade” which we kept biking past was in fact ”La Rue Des Quatre Chemin” and the one we were looking for. Of course when we found the Canal there was nothing to indicate that it was THE canal and in a land composed entirely of drained marshes we really wanted to be sure. Needless to say we ended up a little lost.

The road to La Rochelle was flat and featureless, befitting a road raised from wetlands. The ocean breeze had picked up and although we could not see open water we could feel its influence as it ruffled our hair and pushed back our bikes with unrelenting force. Herons and sea birds took to flight as we passed and a pair of antique spitfires fought a mock duel across the sky. Our only companion was the constant howl of the wind and we tried to drown it out by singing, our voices making up for a lack of skill with a surfeit of enthusiasm. The birds took to the air in greater numbers, but since I leave their chirping uncriticized I felt they should have afforded us the same courtesy. We passed a fortified church and a sad multitude of cats that had fallen victim to murderous rubber.

La Rochelle did not so much as appear as fade into existence. First we saw jagged peaks, like hard rocks emerging from a grassy hill in the distance. The traffic passing by grew; one car, two, a whining motorcycle, then a flood of vehicles, drowning us in their roar. The distant rocks grew harder, more solid. From a distance they looked like castles, fortified towers, the peaks of great cathedrals. Then the illusion dissolved and they were merely apartment buildings and cell phone towers.

We followed a lush green park as it curled its way through the city like a serpent, ending at the bustling central terminal for all of La Rochelle’s public transportation. A thousand people swarmed about us on their diverse errands, each unerringly heading to their destination. But we were lost. To our right was a great cathedral in a style new to us and a map of the city’s bus routes. I can only stare at it blankly but Heather finds our destination, the Auberge de Jeunesse, on the other side of the city.

We ride down beside the cathedral, its glory shrouded by spider webs of scaffolding and dimmed by students getting drunk in its shadows. But the street we follow is straight out of the movies. Narrow pavement with overhanging buildings three stories high, a covered sidewalk arched over with stone, turrets rising from the street corners and shop fronts. A maze of streets with a dazzling array of shops and scintillating smells, freshly baked baguettes, chocolate and coffee. We dodge around fashionable ladies, beggars with their dogs and frowning gendarmes. Suddenly we emerge from a great gate topped with an ornate clock tower. We are in the old harbor and two of La Rochelle ancient defensive towers rise before us like sleeping sentinels. The one on our left, the tower of Saint Nicholas, tilts at a strange angle, reclining in its sleep. We walk our bikes around the slippery stone at the edge of the harbor. One slip will plunge us into the jade green water of the inner harbor. We walk for an eternity, until is seems like we are walking out of the city. We pass ships, then boats, a vast flotilla of boats, and then we arrive at the hostel.

We haggle at the front desk seeking a room to share apart from the crowds, then we unload our mountains of gear and trudge up the steps to our new abode. What we were expecting I don’t know, but where Talmont St. Hilare was old and dirty this is sparkling clean, whitewashed concrete. It has no soul. We collapse on the beds and sleep.

By the time we go out it is evening, by the time we reach the harbor again it is dark and a fairytale vista beckons. The two towers of the harbor are lit and glow yellow in the night.

The passing lights of cars inside the walls are like glittering gems. We cross a footbridge and watch the crowds surge around us. The streets are busy, the city has come down to dine and the enjoy itself. The restaurants are full. We circle the harbor, smelling the salt sea breeze and we climb the ramparts. The lantern tower is aglow beside us, the tower of the chain behind. The tower of the chain was home to the great iron chain that was strung across the harbor at night to keep out the unwanted. It looks like a squat beer stein. But the Lantern Tower, prison since its creation, is a Gothic dream in the night. A pointed rooftop with a dozen gargoyles climbing its slopes, ornate windows looking out forlornly on the night while great crests and ornaments for the sake of ornament that fade to darkness as the tower curves away from the city into darkness. We follow the high ramparts around the city and peer into French windows like voyeurs. A home is lit comfortingly; a man sits at his computer and types beside a shelf sagging beneath the weight of books. Baguettes and wine sit untouched on his table. We follow the road around until it returns to the harbor.

The restaurants are alive now and their preparations spill into the streets. One, its staff serving a party its kitchens couldn't handle, spills oysters and ice cold trays of seafood out into the street. Chefs pry open oysters with knives that glitter in the streetlights, sliding harmlessly along chain mail gauntlets. We linger, secretly dreaming of pockets stuffed with ill gotten shells, but the chefs are too wary and we sidle away with the others who share our lustful watch.

Now we choose streets at random and pass through crowded night markets and deserted alleys. In a hidden square with age darkened statues a congress of the disposed is in full swing and the smell of cheap wine and urine taints the air as glass bottles are thrown at ragged dogs. In another square lovers embrace, oblivious to passersby, half hidden in the shadow of a decaying church. A crowd gathers at a nearby bar, cheering and celebrating until it seems impossible that today is not a holiday. We turn and avoid the man pissing down the storm drains and instead we find the harbor once more.

The walk back is calm, relaxing and as dark as a forgotten memory. A forest looms beside us waving gently. There are no leave, no branchs, no soil, only great fiberglass and steel trunks, spikes rustling with the faintest ripples of the water. 3000 pleasure boats like a bed of nails too large to contemplate. The view is awesome and more than a little frightening.
We find our hostel and climb to our cold concrete room and take our separate beds, soft but solitary, and dream of the sea. La Rochelle is dusty by day, beautiful by night, a chaos of old and new. I am glad we came.

Next Entry: Day 81. La Rochelle
Previous Entry: Day 79. Marans

Day 79. Marans. Oct 24 2001.

I woke today from the best sleep I've had in a while, since well before this trip. The greatest gift a person can have is the gift of perfect sleep. What I woke to was less encouraging. A storm raged outside our window. Sheets of rain pounding on terra cotta rooftops and lightning igniting the walls of our room in arcs of electric blue to be followed by a thunderous boom that made the panels of our ancient dresser rattle like old bones. It was beautiful to behold, all the more so behind solid walls around which we could hear the howl of the wind and not feel it.

I listened to the storm for a time that seemed almost frozen, wrapped in warm blankets next to my sleeping wife, listening to a downpour of water that a few nights before would have sent me scrambling for earplugs and something to block the single leaky Velcro strap at the top of the tent. I tried to figure the time from the depths of the darkness at the window and calculated it to be three or four in the morning, plenty of time to slip back beneath the warm covers ands regain my beautiful sleep…and the alarm went off!

We rose and dressed with languid disregard for the time, despite the long distance to be covered. We had no desire to leave. Eventually, despite our reluctance, we slowly filtered down the wooden stairs, paid for our lodgings and got our bikes from the filthy garage. The rain still dripped periodically as we loaded our luggage and as we set out, making us none too eager for the road.

We cycled listlessly at first, as if by leaving half heartedly we could preserve the comfort of the room behind us. But the sun soon came out, driving the rain away and our strength picked up in an old familiar rhythm.

We had not gone long before I noticed a strange grey shape. Unexpectedly a menhir loomed into view, an ancient site marking…what? We cycled in close. An old, obviously seldom used, gravel path led out to the menhir. The menhir was somehow beautiful in its ugliness, standing upright in a circle of red gravel ten feet beyond where the path gave out.

It rose grey and monolithic to the sky, which changed from white to blue as we watched in awe. The lichen crusted skin only added to the surreal atmosphere of the stone. Standing not a hundred yards from a major highway we were transported to another, far older, world.



Then we noticed huddling in the shadow of the menhir before us a second, smaller, stone, the second point in a broken triangle. They were the Menhirs of Plessis, all that remained of an equilateral triangle of stone raised before the conquest by Rome. One, the first, rose seven and a half meters while the second squatted toad-like at a mere 3 and a half. The third had been destroyed in some unnamed accident almost a hundred and fifty years ago.

Ironically enough a modern power line ran nearby, as if mocking the ley lines that some believe were marked by the menhirs.

Returning to the road was almost like time travel, rejoining the century we had left behind, cars rushing heedlessly forward while the rocks stayed, silent and unchanging. The trucks honk again as they pass us and we have reached a new conclusion. They are honking even as they cross over into another lane to give us as wide a berth as possible. It is possible they are not honking angrily at us to get off their road but instead giving us ample warning so we will not be shocked as they barrel by or so we won’t be caught in the current of wind they pull behind them like the wake of a ship. It is preferable to think that they are being kind whatever the case may be.

We continued on and welcomed the arrival of flatter country. The sea was still some distance away but the terrain was flat, the wind was at our backs and we arrived at our halfway point of Lucon far earlier than we had expected. We bought lunch and cycled to the cathedral to eat.

From the outside I must say that Notre Dame de Lucon was very ugly indeed. There was a fine facing and large gothic windows, a series of rising Doric, Ionic and Corinthian columns and a spire that looked as though it could touch the clouds. But generations of rain and wind had worn delicate carving to nothing and years of neglect had eroded any beauty to a hideous mockery of it’s former self, like an old hag who can see echoes of the beauty she once was in the wrinkles of her face. There was little to entice us in. Even the monastery rose like an ancient growth from the cathedrals side, its conglomeration of architectural styles more like a cluster of cancerous cells than a thing of beauty. But we went in, more to find shelter from the cold breeze that had sprung up than from anything else.


Inside lived up to our expectation and yet did not. It was ugly, falling apart in a fashion that makes the word dilapidated kind. But every niche was full. There were statues of St. Joseph, Christ and Joan of Arc. There were paintings; Christ on the cross, our lady of Lourdes, a dozen others. There were also marble testimonials to cures or prayers granted. All this transformed a decayed look to a lived in look, from dead to well used. This was the first church in which I had seen testimonials to St. Joseph for his intervention. Mary gets all the press.

We found the door to the cloisters and filled out in silence. The cloister was almost flooded in the middle. Last nights rain too much for the medieval structure. But it was from here that the cathedral looked best, its spire echoed many time over in points rising above each stained glass window.

We returned and discovered the cathedrals pride and joy; an ancient lectern, colours fading, from which Cardinal Richelieu had preached between 1606 and 1623, his years as bishop of Lucon.

 
Turning back we saw Lucon's second pride, a great pipe organ, a gift from Napolean III, rising like a curtain of silver, filled the back of the cathedral. One could only reach it on a bridge from the monastery.

Outside the day had turned colder, more than once I have been tempted to steal candles from a church, but we set out none the less. We had entered the region of the wetlands, a flat stretch of France in the grassy armpit beneath the peninsula of Brittany and the Pays du Loire. It was flat and so we liked it but the wind was harsh. Heather rode before me, her bike tilted at a constant pitch of 5 of 10 degrees just to match the wind. Everywhere were massive fetid channels into which the marsh drained, channels that flowed with the speed of sludge towards an eventual rendezvous with sea. Cows stood at the edge of the canals and stared forlornly across, as though the draining of the marches had happened overnight, leaving them trapped on islands that they could not understand.

Marans was one, actually a series of many, such islands, titleling itself “The Green Venice.” Better than “The City With Sewers that Never Drain.” The place where we pitched our tent was so damp and muddy that I was ready to believe the cows; the marches had only been drained yesterday. The host at the campground was very excited to see us. He ran out from where he was helping city workers dig up the water mains and talked to us most excitedly in English. He followed us around our site giving a running commentary on our fellow campers and even looked ready to pitch our tent with us. I followed him back to his office to talk to him.

He was enthusiastically helpful, calling ahead to campgrounds he thought would be open and fuming angrily at the phone when no one answered. He was very vocal. I showed him my Michelin guide to camping and he snorted “Oh, it is shit!” I asked him about the work being done at the campground and he said “Oh, those government guys, they are shit!” He wanted to talk about the weather and said “Oh, it is shit!” Finally he told me that he had to go, he was meeting with a government minister about getting the work done. “Oh,” he said “He is an asshole.” I can guess which first words he learns in any foreign language.

Setting up tent was a strange and unsettling experience. After all the effort cleaning it sinking our fabric home into a hillside of mud seemed almost like a desecration. A small canal ran just behind our tent, a thick soupy green, and it was hard to believe that it was not more solid than the slippery ground beneath us. Our tent pegs sunk in so easily they almost disappeared beneath the earth and when we sat down on our sleeping bags the ground shifted around like a waterbed beneath our bodies. At least it was comfortable, but I miss the solidity of four wooden walls and the convenience of a shower in the room. One stop at a hotel and you’re ruined.



Next Entry: Day 80. La Rochelle
Previous Entry: Day 78. Talmont St. Hilaire

Day 78. Talmont St. Hilaire. Oct 23 2001.

What a relief to wake from a night of sleep with no interruptions and feeling a hundred times better. Today I feel as though I am almost me again and I am anxious to get going. But a hundredfold improvement is still not all the way. I still hack and cough, sputtering for air, even if only once or twice every 10 minutes. We resolved today to stay for the whole day and sleep one more night in our sagging bed. Our next destination is a long ride from here and there is little sense in tackling it while still sick.

Today we are homebodies resting body and mind, cleaning and clearing and getting ready to tackle life with canvas walls once more. We find that when we rest in a place it become our home, we leave our marks, scattered debris that proclaims our territorial boundaries, and we learn the features and it is hard to leave.

Fear for the unknown has sent me searching for a phone. I am not willing to trust the guide that has proved so deceptive, so disappointing. We tramped out together and found a phone not too far from our lodgings. But when the operator asked courteously for country codes and city codes that we did not have I gave up in frustration.

We continued up Talmont’s centre street where we found the Super U and stopped for groceries. Heather showed me the seafood section in delight. Even after almost thirty days in France we are still delighted by counter tops swathed in ice and a colorful display of seafood. The shrimp in a woven wicker basket flipped and writhed in angry spasmodic jerks, as if cursed with a foreknowledge of their gastronomical fate. Eels and deep sea fish stared up from their frozen bed with lifeless eyes and the crabs here seemed listless and crusted with sand. Heather walked purposefully through the aisle of the market, trying to feed us and still not destroy a budget already broken and shattered. I fell behind and drifted away into the aisle of books and music and toys. ABBA came over the radio and the stock clerk counting inventory unconsciously broke into song. I flipped through books on Vendee legends, naval history and prehistoric artifacts. I was startled to find references to home in the book on naval history. The people of the Vendee had been delighted, it seems, by the crew of the HMCS Iroqois when, after liberating the area of Nazi occupation, they had erected a huge cake declaring “Vivre la France, Canada, Angleterre et Amerique.” What delighted the French so much was, unlike messages from their other liberators these words were delivered bilingually.

The books were a surreal mix of French culture and pervasive American influence. Dark French police novels, covers adorned with sexy women and guns rested on racks next to Buffy Contre les Vampires and Anne Rice novels. The racks of toys mixed unknown French action heroes and G.I. Joe dolls. But all the video games were American and even the boxes were English with no translation. French had been the international language of diplomacy but now gave way to English, international language of computer geeks.

Heather finished selecting our meals for the day, a fare not much different from yesterday or the day before, meat, cheese, grapes and the ubiquitous French baguette. We returned to our hotel, our haven, and ate our lunch.

We hauled out our sand and grime coated tent and threw it into the shower and let the water run. I leapt in and scrubbed dirt and sand away until the showers floor resembled more the sea bed than anything else. We threw our sopping dwelling out the window and let it dry over the kitchen roof. And then we did nothing. We lay in bed as I read Heather Hyperion, then she slept while I snuck out to the phone once more. Even as I walked our previously sunny and warm day disintegrated under an onslaught of clouds and down the rain came. Heather had woken up in time to see the rushing clouds and save our drying things. Armed as I was this time with calling codes and city numbers still I failed to get through and I feared my failure might have more to do with a closed campground than inability to use a French phone. I returned to our hotel in disgust.

As I did the clouds dissipated and a brilliant rainbow filled the sky, arching, like a tourist ad for the perfect vacation, over the crumbling ruins of Richard's castle. I stared and longed for a camera and knew that moments like that were not really meant to be caught on film.

I arrived once more at our sheltered door and a realization hit me. We have lived with the elements, on an intimate first name basis, twenty four hours a day since, it seems, before time began. We have considered weather to be our friend, our foe, our ally and our indifferent nemesis and we are always aware of it. We have come to think of ourselves as weather conscious, knowing the pulse beat of the skies, and yet, now, behind the shelter of solidity, weather is forgotten. Not merely relegated to a secondary status, not ignored, just forgotten. Rarely do we look at the sky and never to assess what the next minute of life will hold for us. The sky and clouds are merely pretty decorative objects that no longer dictate our lives like the stars on an astrologers chart. Three days and we have become absolutely disconnect from what had been the most important aspect of our lives, and we had scarcely noticed. How many other things pass from places of critical importance in our lives and we never notice their passing?

I entered our room, or rather tried to enter. Heather had set up the tent in the room to let it dry out of the rain and it blocked the door with a fabric barricade that yielded but would not give. After minutes of struggle I finally squeezed into the room. The tent was on its side and the blue groundsheet rose menacingly in our little room, a blue nylon monolith, a science fiction metaphor for our journey. I expected to look in to the mirror and see wrinkled hands and face, Also Sprach Zarathustra humming from spinning bike wheels in the garage below us.

The smell of sautéed onions and freshly baking pizza drifted up through cracks in the floor, taunting us with delicious scents and odors too expensive to inhale. Tentatively I went down the stairs and asked our hostess to kindly explain the phones to me. Instead she called the campground in Marans, a long ride away, and confirmed that they were open until nov. 15. I appreciated her kindness, but as the ancient saying goes: “give a man a phone…”

Strange how much I will regret leaving here. In the sunken bed and water stained walls I have found a sort of spiritual balm. Talmont can be an ugly little town, slowly decaying in the sun of southern France and the rains and winds off the Atlantic. But it seems to harbour a soul full of inspiration such as I have found in so few places, a taint of artistry that calls out to be created. Tomorrow is the pain of hard bike seats and the elements and I can only hope to find that feeling elsewhere...

...and pray that my bike will not say “we have a problem Dave.”

Next Entry: Day 79. Marans
Previous Entry: Day 77. Talmont St. Hilaire

Day 77. Talmont St. Hilaire. Oct 22 2001

Last night was a nightmare collage of wracking coughs, fevered dreams and aching muscles. Every time I surrendered to exhaustion and slumped down to the beaten and broken mattress my lungs protested and sent me upright in a volley of coughs that sounded terribly like the vicious barking of a dog. So violently did I cough that my head began to explode with pain with every movement. Even as my body shook I castigated myself for imagining that I could bike across France, let alone a significant portion of Europe. Only as daylight touched the casements of our window and cast first hesitant rays of light across the mossy kitchen roof was I able to find the solace of sleep.

I woke to an incessantly pounding head and church bells that no longer sounded sweet, merely loud. Heather dressed then disappeared out the door to find food to sustain us. I crawled feebly into the booth that served as our shower and curled up on the floor, allowing the scalding water to cascade over me as if in a metal and plastic womb. By the time Heather returned the room had filled with a choking steam.

Heather hadn’t merely purchased groceries but had braved an unfamiliar tongue and a slightly deaf pharmacist to bring me soothing drugs and cough syrup. She was flustered and embarrassed, trying to convey her exact needs in a foreign language had been hard for her and she kept apologizing, as if I cared that she had mispronounced the word for “husband” or “heaving cough.”

After being drugged and having a rest I began to feel human once more. Unable to merely do nothing we set out, if not energetically, then at least with a little enthusiasm, to see Talmont Castle. The castle rose from a series of decaying fortifications on a rocky outcrop near the centre of town, its crenelated and corroded peak almost lost behind a swirling murder of crows that made the place seem sinister even in daylight. We climbed the steep path that led to the wooden shack that served as the twentieth century gatehouse. The castle seemed wilted, in a way that only a tourist attraction in the final days before closing can be. They had lost their credit card machine so we were forced to dig into our dwindling supply of coins.

Built by William the Bold in 1025 and modernized by Richard the Lionheart with ideas brought back from Syria, the castle sprawled out, a conglomerate of accreted pieces. The wall that separated the lower courtyard form the upper had disappeared with age, the majesty that once must have been the lord’s manor had crumbled to dust and the castles defensive face had fallen to reveal the bones building beneath. William the Bold had built his castle over the church of Saint Peter and the beautiful arches and vaults of the bell tower peered out from surprising corners.

We climbed the staircase of the western tower and stopped at its first branching. Here was the base of the ancient bell tower, a niche almost walled over during the hurried building of outer walls. A silent room with a single entrance and windows so high and narrow they could scarcely be seen. Here William, and Richard after him, had stored their money, their jewels, and their suits of ceremonial amour. Here was a treasure chamber any thief might have given his arm to find and we stalked its floors and casually appraised its vaulted ceiling.

Then we climbed again and climbed, to the second floor that opened to the wall walks and higher still to the command room that had opened to the sky as the ceiling collapsed and higher still to a terrace beneath the flapping flags of Richard and a view from here to the sea. Below us the clustered red roofs of town bunched together in silent huddles, their red paved surfaces a highway about the streets.

We followed the passages to the latrines, to the murder hole above the gatehouse and through a maze of stones and dim light that almost left us lost. The castle seemed a mountain, stones that had been heaped one atop another in careless disregard, and then hollowed to make space for those who inhabited it. Artificial caves in an artificial hill a hundred feet above the town.

We descended an endless stair on the castles far side, sure that we must be descending far beneath the ground, only to emerge on green grass. Outside an ancient defensive tunnel disappeared deep into the earth, its hidden recesses gated off from prying eyes.

We left the site and wandered outside and only then did we realize that even the hill on which the castle stood had been fortified, the walls serving now as the rear walls of sheds and houses. The castle had been shattered by Louis XIII and the famed Richelieu so that the region's Protestants would have no place to hide.

We returned to our hotel room, how strange to write that, my pen almost automatically wrote "campsite", our hotel room and we began to pack. There is a lively debate in my mind tonight about whether we will leave at the first sign of light tomorrow or rest another day with a solid roof and bed beneath us. We cannot really afford to stay. We will pack tonight and see how things are in the morning.

As we pack we are desperately trying to lighten our loads. There is so much that we carry that we do not use but we cannot easily bring ourselves to part with. Things of sentimental value or things those we “might use if…” I am trying to learn the mystical art of packing. How do you arrange things so that you can get at what you need without flinging everything else across whatever space you have? There is the story of the Greek man, I forget his name now, who wanted simplicity and so owned only his robe and a drinking cup, until one day he saw a beggar using his hands to drink from a fountain. With a cry of joy he threw away his drinking cup. We need resolve like that.

Next Entry: Day 78. Talmont St. Hilaire
Previous Entry: Day 76. Talmont St. Hilaire.

Day 76. Talmont St. Hilaire. Oct 21 2001.

We woke to misery. The tent was coated in a thick layer of sand, the sky was gray and water had seeped in through the corners. Both of us were ill, Heather worse than I, but we were equally wracked with coughs we thought would have left by now and Heather was congested enough that her head ached.

To leave or not to leave was the question that plagued us. I wanted to go, Heather wanted to stay. I felt a need to leave this campground with its sandy plots and rattle of dead branches against one another. Heather wanted to stay, looking at the gray sky with a weary eye, not willing to deal with another day of rain. Finally I prevailed and had begun to load my bike when the clouds opened in a downpour that left me soaking.

We agreed to stay.

But time passed and while the clouds did not lift they lightened and I argued to go once more. Our destination town was not far and I wanted to be on the move. Finally Heather capitulated and we packed up once more, fearfully watching the skies. Even as we worked the clouds blew over and revealed beautiful blue sky and brilliant sunlight that shone down like a benediction.

Still, packing was not easy. Cleaning the tent of the grime and sand splashed on by last nights storm proved impossible. We were forced to give up and we packed our filthy dwelling away angrily. We rode out into perfect sunlight looked forward with an optimism that was misguided, if not foolish. Because it was Sunday all the stores were closed and we had no food. The lady at the counter of our campsite reassured us that there was a large supermarket nearby, ready to cater to our nutritional needs. But when we found it even the McDonalds in the parking lot was closed. We had little choice, today we would eat short rations, finishing off the leftover peanuts and hoping for a quick dawn tomorrow.

We headed east, leaving the ocean behind, but not the ominous gray clouds that peered over the horizon like a rising swell of waves. The gray became dark and black and the clouds swelled with a heavy weight of water until they could hold back no more and burst open in anger. We were caught almost halfway to our goal and were soaked to the skin once more. The clouds parted as swiftly as they had gathered but the suns feeble light did little to dry us.

We reached Talmont sometime in mid-afternoon. Even the restaurants and bakeries were closed and there was no sigh of the promised campsite. Finally we found a clue and headed back out of town.

We found the campground alright, the one our guide promised “open to the end of October” and once more it was closed! I stared at the “ferme” sign and felt anger boil inside of me. How can you plan a trip if your guides are full of faulty information? How many more time would we face the gut wrenching disappointment of “ferme” and feel the stress of not knowing where to sleep? My anger hit a critical juncture and I flung the book from me in disgust. Three hundred and sixty degrees from which to choose and unerringly I hit upon the ten degrees that are occupied by my distraught wife. The book bounced off the front of her bike and my anger dissolved into depressed apologies. It felt like I couldn't even get angry without screwing up.

Despondently we headed back to Talmont facing the inevitable fact that we had to break the budget once more and find a hotel. We had not lost all our spirit however and decided that a two star hotel was better than a no star hotel and hence we followed the signs out of town. What the signs failed to mention was that the two star hotel was in fact on the beach, a good thirty kilometers or so from Talmont. We gave up in despair once more.

We returned to town for our third time and sought the low budget places in the crowded streets. The first, catering to truckers, had a huge sign hidden on a back window, closed until October 29. The second didn't even bother with a sign and was merely closed. Mere words cannot convey the cold numbness that had dropped over us. We stood listlessly in the street, listening indifferently to the silence of the city. Even simple decisions became impossible to make. How could we make another when all the others had turned out so wrong?

Finally our aimless and careless wanders brought us to the Boule D’or, a restaurant with lodgings over top. I went in to ask, not even caring anymore what the reply would be. The young woman at the counter seemed surprised that she had a tenant and showed me the room with an apprehension that could have been fear, excitement or surprise. The room was small and I didn't really see it, didn't really care. I went down to Heather and we stowed our bikes in the filthy garage. We climbed the steps wearily.

The room was a square covered in white wallpaper with blue splashes and water stains near the ceiling. A yellow bed with a fold in the middle large enough to hide a person stuck out in garish repose from the rotten wall, beside it an old beaten wardrobe. On the east wall, where a window looked out to the back roof of the restaurant and a panoramic view of lichen covered roof tiles, was a single wooden table and a single wooden chair from which I am writing even now. The south wall sported a sink that hung loosely from the wall over orange tiles that covered the hardwood flood. Beside it was a booth two thirds the size of a phone booth, in which we could shower. Our toilet was down the hall, with no sink of its own.

Despite the crudity of the room it somehow added up to more than the sum of its parts. I could picture myself huddled over the skeletal table, beside the window that looked on nothing, scribbling madly with pen in hand, the very posture from which I write these words.

The room had, has, an ambiance that brings to mind lonely struggling authors, painters, artists of all stripes and the frantic need to create that can tolerate no distraction. Even the church bells sound sweeter from here, more real and relevant to the passage of human time. But ambiance and peanuts a poor meal make and I was getting more ill with every clang of the bells.

As night fell we went in search of a pizzeria that we had passed earlier. San Marco’s was a small dive with mural of Venice covering one wall, yellowed from cigarettes and age. The pizza was excellent. The pepper oil served in a long tapering beaker with the leaves and peppers floating in a golden soup with a taste that burned lips and tongues and left you wanting more. San Marco on the Avenue of the Sands. Our server was young and polite, as all those who want to be elsewhere but know you are their paycheck can be. His mother bustled about warning us to be careful of the spicy oils, watching with delight as we ate our first ice cream in months and running around with a happy smile and familiarity that made the restaurant her own. Even flustered as she was, trying to use their new, intricate, credit card machine, she never lost a brilliant smile. We left reluctantly, our bellies hardly full, the smoke from fellow dinners burning my lungs and forcing long painful coughs from me that tore at my throat.

As we climbed the stairs to our room Heather noted a strange light at the hallways end. She looked out and gasped. The fortress of Richard the Lionhearted, the centerpiece of Talmont St. Hilaire, was bathed in a gentle blue glow, as if rising from an ethereal mist. The church that rose beside it blotted from view.

We had visited the church earlier, after we deposited our gear and gained some volition back. We had sat in the pews of St. Peters and talked seriously about the future of the trip. With campgrounds unexpectedly closed at every turn and both of us so ill that we can hardly bike, let alone clamber over ruins and tourist sites, our future is hazy. I have no desire to end the trip, but our budget will not allow many stays like tonight's. I despair a little, feeling as though we have failed in some esoteric fashion. We have seen so much and yet so little. But tonight at least I am too ill to contemplate going on.

I cannot help but feel like a pale shadow of Keats, with my tiny room, wracking cough and despair. But I am not dying, I am not a poet and I have the hope at least that in the morning my despair will be gone. At least our walls do not shake tonight as I cough and I can sit up by electric candlelight. Darkness outside with light inside is strange to us and looking at the clock I see that it is almost 9:00. An hour past our bedtime.

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