World heritage churches and spa towns

We set up camp in a valley close to the hilltop town of Vezulay and assumed there would be no parking spaces for ‘camping cars’, so we cycled the steady uphill grind to the abbey that is inevitably perched at the top commanding a panoramic view of the little villages, fields and glades of trees.

The actual village, built in creamy yellow stone, cascaded down the hillside from the abbey. It had turned itself over to the tourist market, there were little hotels, restaurants and boutique shops, all bedecked with multi-coloured flower boxes. There were no areas to park a bike let alone a camping car and we ended up pushing Howard and Hilda nearly to top. Just before the abbey they were shackled to a barrier gate.

Nuns in long sky blue habits and black-clad priests strode purposefully between the various church buildings. The abbey was founded in the 880s and is another UNESCO world heritage site. It is a traditional starting point for the trail to Santiago Compostela in Spain. We saw a few people with a scallop shell dangling from their pannier/backpack – the scallop shell is symbolic with the pilgrimage.

Vezulay

Abbeye de Fontenay

After we had our fill of abbey, we freewheeled downhill to our campsite, Stuart couldn’t get Howard to top 48.9 km/hr while I was white knuckled applying Hilda’s brakes, with a backlog of vehicles behind me.

Next stop we visited the town of Avallon – another church, also quite old - 10^th century origins, underneath was a crypt with the original altar. I like a good crypt. Avallon had bronze frog motifs set into the cobbles and a large bronze frog statue, I haven’t found out the symbolism yet.

The ever helpful Mr (or is it Mrs) Google was consulted about our next destination and Abbeye de Fontenay came up as a sure fire winner. It scored for being another UNESCO world heritage site.

The abbey is very plain in appearance so worshippers are not distracted, the understated symmetrical gardens giving an air of elegance. There was a feeling of peace and serenity as we walked past the cricket wicket lawns – how do they get those stripes? our lawn has never had stripes but I guess we don’t really have ‘lawn’.

The building was started by Cistercian monks in 1118, and it evolved successfully over the centuries. The monks mined iron ore smelted it in their foundry used their forge to make tools that they sold for funds. I never imagined monks as smithys. The abbey was sold after the French Revolution as property of the state and ended up being a paper mill. In 1906 a wealthy family bought it and have restored it to its splendor of today.

After the abbey visit we pressed the satnavs POI (point of interest) button to direct us to the nearest aire. She came up with a winner – a campsite in a horseshoe bend of a stream fed by springs. The water was beautifully clear and hosted some deep green weed, trout and duck families. The town did its best but was never going to win the plus beau village prize. It had lots of springs running through it and the council had commissioned a mural to give a Venetian appearance to one of the buildings but that is as far as it got.

Campsite for the night

In Burgundy some canal paths were cycled, an extremely large viaduct at Chaumont viewed, and a couple of small towns with natural hot springs visited.

The most interesting one was Plombiere les Bains. To reach the town we descended a steep road, Stuart engaged the button on the dash that has a picture of a little truck with a giant gas bottle perched on the back and down down we went. Plombiere is still an elegant town and it was once obviously a very fashionable destination. There is no public access to the old baths, they had all been incorporated into modern versions of spas with people trailing round in white bathrobes. I couldn’t see Stuart being party to that. There must have once been a huge number of hotel rooms available but now some of those buildings, once grand and standing 5 stories high had broken windows and weeds had sprouting in unlikely places.

It could be Venice

It was at Plombiere that we noticed a crossover of architectural style. In France-regular, the buildings and houses are often terraced and built of stone covered in plaster. The roofs are tiled in terracotta, shutters in faded chalky pastels and front doors frequently open onto the footpath. More expensive gaffs have the full monty of sculptured hedges and rosebushes while the terraced houses have beautiful floral displays in pots outside. We can now see an alpine influence in stand-alone houses with steep pitched roofs, and dark brown stained wood.

Alsace was high on my destination list and I was not disappointed when we pulled into the cobbled one way streets of Munster to see storks complete with babies in their huge messy nests on top of chimneys and purpose built nesting platforms. They clattered their beaks noisely at tourists straining to take their photographs. Munster is close to the German border and famous for a smelly cheese that I bought in a fromagerie (instead of my usual shop of choice – Lidl). Alsace and its neighbouring department Lorraine have been passed back and forth between France and Germany following war settlements. They are definitely in France but look as if they could be in Germany, there is much to explore and see in Alsace which is what we are going to. We are waiting at the moment for our friends Phil and Jenny to join us at a canalside aire, ready to see more of Alsace.

In the town Renoir spent most of his life