Day 88 A trip to Langres

At breakfast this morning we continued our experiments as automatic egg boiling machine technicians. The results of our efforts were promising but not yet perfect. Unfortunately, we must leave the task of developing a perfect egg boiling technique to those who will follow us.

My feet have stood up quite well to the unusually strenuous activities that they have had to endure of late. Yesterday, however, one of these feet made an official complaint and indicated that if I continued to ignore its requests for better working conditions then it would withdraw its labour. Our bedroom had a very good shower but no bath. The  bathroom sink was small and high so no chance of getting my foot into that. I asked Ludivine for a bowl in which to soak this unfortunate member expecting a plastic washing up bowl to be produced. What she gave me was a beautiful china bowl which had been her grandmother’s. I carried the bowl upstairs very carefully indeed. The bowl worked very well and the foot accepted its new working conditions gladly. This morning I attempted to return the bowl and picked it up in order to take it downstairs. For some reason Janet insisted that I leave it in the room, she appears to believe that I am a very clumsy person and would trip on the stairs and drop the lot. A laden rucksack, two walking poles, a door key plus the bowl would have been no problem for me at all particularly as I was wearing my large, heavy, new French walking boots for added stability.

 

At last we said a rather sad goodbye to our fabulous hostess, Ludivine Michel and, after lunch, ambled down to the railway station to get the train for Langres.

I have a small bottle of mirabelle in my rucksack as a parting gift.  Perhaps now is the time to pour a small glass and say “salut”.

Langres is a fabulous walled town which has resisted attacks for more than a thousand years.

 

 

We were very glad when we got to the town from the plain. The hill just went up and up. For cars the road did ‘S’ bends, for us it just went straight up and up.

When we had finished toiling up to the top we learned that there had been a rack and pinion railway up until 1971. What a pity that we were 41 years too late to catch it.

Our host for tonight asked us if we knew why the town had been fortified. We didn’t have a clue why. He said “Over there used to be England, and it was to stop the English!”

The walls of the town are filled with slits so that defenders could shower their enemies with nasty things at will. The slits are set at all sorts of angles in the wall so that fire could be directed anywhere.

The landscape which used to be England looks quite like Shropshire.

As we took a constitutional evening stroll along he ramparts we could hear a tinkling noise behind us and, having got over the surprise, got out of the way of the tourist train. Along the top of the fortification runs a very narrow walkway. The twists and turns are sharp with the added element of odd bits of medieval masonry sticking out from the sides. I take my hat off to the nonchalant skills of the driver of this conveyance, particularly as she had her daughter, or somesuch person, sitting in the tiny driver’s compartment as well.

This map is not a stroll map but the fortified walls of Langres.