Pilgrim's Road

pretty hilly countryside on the western fringes of the Massif Central that was slashed by deep river beds. For once there was almost no wind, and in the stillness I heard my first cuckoo of the year. Lunch was bread and cheese surl’herbe on a high ridge watching a pair of buzzards lazily practising aerobatics while I boiled a second kettle for coffee — the first having overturned because of my preoccupation with these most marvellous of aerial performers. This was more what I had imagined the journey would be like — an idyllic springtime passage through a pleasant land. And so it continued for a few days, days of soft sunshine full of the fresh scents of growing things and the calls of woodpeckers and cuckoos, small hawks and buzzards.
    Night stops were not always quite so Arcadian. Because of the paucity of camping sites I had to stay in places I would not normally choose. Once, at the say so of a resident, I pitched the tent beside a stream on the outskirts of a village, and was much plagued by an elderly bibulous gentleman who seemed to think I might succumb to his Gallic charm if he was persistent enough. Even when I succeeded in repulsing him, he remained in close proximity, and whenever I looked up from my book, his large purple nose was pointed in my direction, with his bloodshot eyes wearing the reproachful expression of a rejected hound. He retired to the village bar just before nightfall where presumably he soon became hors de combat for he gave me no further trouble.
    At Perigueux I camped on the banks of the Isle, a fine impetuous river rippling over falls and weirs with the town perched high above it on the northern bank. Here, according to my Aimery Picaud guide, I should be venerating the relics of St Front, a very holy bishop consecrated by St Peter himself, and with numerous miracles to his credit. Probably the church would have been locked anyway, like most of the others, but I forgot all about St Front in my search for a square meal. By this stage of the journey, with all the fresh air and exercise, my appetite was prodigious, and Perigueux seemed not over-supplied with restaurants. I found an ancient hotel eventually, dark brown in colour, and in atmosphere a little like Dracula’s castle. I was the only guest in the cavernous, dimly lit dining room, where a large-bosomed brassy-haired Madame sat in state at a raised mahogany cash desk near the entrance, watching over the creepy waiter who, bent like a hairpin, brought me course after course. Every now and then a distracted-looking chef put his head around the corner and made frantic signs which were ignored by the other two. He was supposed to be guarding my bicycle in his kitchen, as Madame had decided that Perigueux was not a safe place to leave even a locked bicycle outside. Though adequate, I cannot claim it was a gastronomically memorable meal, but it certainly had high entertainment value — and for all concerned. For when I went to collect Robert as the bicycle tended to be called in France because of the name of the maker inscribed on the downtube — the second syllable lengthened lovingly, making it a much nicer sounding name I thought than plain English Roberts — I found that the chef and his large fierce-looking assistant were having a high old time riding Robert around the kitchen.
    Going back along the river bank was lovely. A thin mist was rising from the water, and everything seemed so romantic and eighteenth century in the soft moonlight, a total contrast with the previous raw evening which I had spent on a municipal site between St Leónard de Noblat and Limoges. St Leónard’s relics were also worth a mega-star according to Aimery Picaud, but I had missed this saint too and any possible indulgences I might have earned, mainly because Picaud got so involved and heated in his writing about different towns laying claim to the possession of the same St Leónard that I was no longer sure where I should venerate this champion of prisoners whose shrine was supposed to be so atmospherically hung about with chains brought there by grateful freed captives. Also the route from Vézelay was not proving very easy to follow, mainly because of the numerous possible variations, so even had I been heading in the right direction I might still have missed St Leónard.
    The municipal site was rather a bleak spot on a hill beside a rough sloping football field, and plagued by some fulltime travellers whom, I understand, are more