8/26-9/06
1137.51 km from Canterbury (from Aosta, Alps Pt. 2)
So this is the point where I tell you all that I am walking my pilgrimage in a somewhat disorganized and half-hazard fashion. When I first organized this pilgrimage, my parents planned to visit and walk with me for the 10-day portion over the alps-- from Lausanne, Switzerland to Aosta, Italy. When they bought their tickets in January, I was planning to be in Lausanne by my birthday. Through a series of unprecedented events, I was about two weeks behind schedule, so I planned to take a train from Bar-sur-Aube to meet up with them, walk over the Alps with them, then take a train from Aosta back to Bar-sur-Aube. Once I returned to Lausanne a few weeks later, I would take a train back to Aosta and finish the pilgrimage in relative succession. Whew! I know that is probably unnecessarily confusing, but I am just happy that I will be able to walk the whole route as well as meet up with my parents for a bit!
The next morning I woke up early and walked to the train station. The train ride to Lausanne had several bumps and false starts, but I made it the whole way with relative ease. I even had a two-hour break in both Chaumont and Dijon.
I arrived in Chaumont pretty early in the morning and the first order of the day was finding food! A few minutes later, Quiche Lorraine in hand, I wandered the beautiful streets in no particular pattern. I stumbled upon the cathedral which had a small yet magnificently decorated chapel in the back.
I arrived in Dijon late that morning and started by walking around the town center. As I was entering a church, a man flagged me down asking if I was a pilgrim! When he heard I was, he took me down one of the side aisles and showed me the chapel dedicated to the pilgrim saint, St Jacques. Even though Dijon wasn't on the Via Francigena, it was nice all the same for someone to recognize that I was a pilgrim.
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| St Jacques |
After leaving the church, I saw an entrance to a free museum that had several life-sized statues inside. One of my favorites was the now ubiquitous Joan of Arc dressed in peasant garb with her hand up to her ear, and her head cocked to better hear her angels. Portents of what was to come can be seen in her hand and at her feet– if you look carefully, she holds a full suit of armor behind her.
The museum also had prints of the Saint Etienne square out front from the last three centuries, and it was really cool to see how the square had grown and changed since then.
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| Place Saint-Etienne in 1757 |
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| Place Saint-Etienne in 1860 |
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| Place Saint-Etienne today |
It was market day in Dijon, and many of the central streets were filled with crowds of people circulating hundreds of stalls.
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| Antique book stall! |
I arrived in Lausanne mid-afternoon, and it was a surprisingly easy meet up with my parents in the busy train station. It was so lovely to see them! For the first time in ages, I could have in-depth and brisk conversations in English and everyone involved could understand each other. They had arrived that morning and went to the Olympic museum which I was very jealous of (when I returned to Lausanne several weeks later I made sure to visit it!) Lausanne is a very modern looking city on the steep banks of Lake Geneva that has been called a "Swiss San Francisco", (which, as a non-San-Franciscan, I consider an apt comparison). After picking me up my parents and I took the tram up the hill to our hotel. This was an amazing hotel right in the city center with fluffy comforters, clean sheets, and a private bathroom!! I felt so spoiled!
That night we went out to a fantastic restaurant to officially celebrate my 25th birthday as well as my parents' 33rd anniversary. For our starters, we had prosciutto wrapped melon, chèvre and beets, and crispy duck. We followed this with tagliatelle in a truffle cream sauce and beef tartar. It was the most amazing dinner, and we all went home nursing food babies.
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| Cheers! |
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| Beets with chèvre and melon with prosciutto |
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| Crispy duck in orange bubbles! |
The next day we planned a ferry ride around Lake Geneva for the afternoon so the first stop that morning was Lausanne Cathedral. This is definitely a grand gothic cathedral albeit it didn't have much in the way of decoration.
They did have a lovely side chapel dedicated to pilgrims where I got my stamp and signed their registry book.
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| Welcome pilgrims! |
There was also a beautiful sculpted porch off one of the side aisles of the cathedral.
Upstairs there were some of the original 15th-century wooden choir seats sporting incredible sculpture!
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| Sagittarius |
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| Wrestlers |
We climbed up the belfry to the top of the cathedral and had the whole place to ourselves. The views across the city were stunning, and we could see Lake Geneva spread out before us. There were a couple of buildings with green roofs which excited my dad!
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| Lake Geneva |
We noticed that much of the belfry looked like it had been renovated in the last century or so and could see in different areas where the renovations were dated during WWI and WWII. This just underlined the fact that Switzerland was neutral and therefore had the means to complete projects like this while other European countries were at each other's throats.
We did see the room that the night watch uses! Lausanne suffered from many medieval fires and is the last city in Europe to still use a nightwatch! Every night between 10 and 2 after the bells have struck the hour, a nightwatch guard will call from the tower that all is well and there are no fires. Alas, we didn't witness this in action as we were all sleeping like babies- my parents suffering from jet lag and me from the softest bed I'd ever slept in!
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| The night guard's room |
After climbing down the hundreds of steps to the ground floor, we left the cathedral and browsed the stalls in the Saturday market. There was an eclectic mix of foodstuffs, handmade goods, antiques, and garage-sale goodies. I stopped at an antique stall and found the most amazing collection of photographs and postcards from WWI. There were several WWI postcards from Peronne, Soissons, and Arras! All the places I had visited! The stall also had a box filled with currencies from the 20th century, and I found some amazing bills from Germany.
After perusing the stalls, we retreated from the heat under a covered patio and enjoyed caffeine and macaroons that my mom had picked up in the market. The macaroons were easily the best I had ever had! We still had a few hours before the ferry ride that afternoon, so in the meantime, we went to the Beaux Art Museum which was five museums in one building. Unfortunately, it ended up being mostly a disappointment as they had created an exhibit in the fine arts wing dedicated to an artist who experimented with art that didn't use color or shapes. While this is an interesting idea in theory, in application it was quite bland. Needless to say, we sailed through that exhibit and found our way to the archeology section where it was much more interesting.
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| Anglo-Saxon earrings |
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| Beautiful belt buckles |
Finally, it was time for our ferry ride, and we hopped on the tram downhill to the docks. The ferry we rode was called the Suisse, and it was a boat from 1910! There was tons of seating both on deck as well as inside, and we promptly made our way onto the deck hoping that the breeze would cool us off- at this point the heat wave had followed me down to Switzerland!
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| The Suisse |
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| Everyone out enjoying the weather! |
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| And the shade! |
It was cool inside the boat; we could see the engine work frantically to propel us forward underneath the glass floor! We ordered some cold drinks and sipped, chatted and surveyed the view as the boat sailed down the southeast side of the lake. The views were spectacular, and when we reached the east end of the lake, we could see the beginnings of the Alps rising in the distance.
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| Lausanne from the water |
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| That glorious wind! |
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| Lakeside town on the French side |
We sailed by the beautiful castle of Chillon then past the resort towns of Montreux and Vevey on the Northeast side of the lake before sailing past the hill terracing back to Lausanne. We could see the whole lakeside route we would walk for the next two days, and it was great seeing it from a different perspective!
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| Chillon Castle |
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| I count four latrines! |
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| Touristy town of Montreux |
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| Terraces upon terraces |
The next morning we strapped on our packs and headed out. For the first bit we walked in Lausanne, but once we reached the lakeside the walk was amazing! We got the breeze coming off the lake, and it helped cool us down. Today was supposed to be the hottest day, but luckily the heat was supposed to go down the next day (well about 4-5 degrees cooler).
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| Walking along the lake |
After a few kilometers next to the lake, we started walking uphill into the terracing. This section was incredibly beautiful! The hills got steadily steeper throughout the day and the terracing even more dramatic. The views from the hillside were spectacular, and this walk was by far the most beautiful I've had so far on my pilgrimage.
The heat was steadily growing, and we were thrilled to find a shaded picnic table! We ate lunch in a beautiful shaded terrace overlooking the lake.
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| Glorious shade for lunch! |
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| A wine house |
The terraces were filled with tracks for these carts. They are used for harvesting and shuttling and have the apt name of "plummet." Dad and I got a chuckle out of that!
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| Down it goes |
Unfortunately, there was no shade on the hillside, so we were very hot. We stopped in a little town for some coffee and a rest before continuing. The towns on the hillside are charming and quaint and filled with tiny alleys and stairways. Monks planted most of the vineyards in the Middle Ages, and some of the wine-houses from the 1800s were still around.
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| Cute little lakeside towns |
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| This tree was planted in 1798 |
The afternoon steadily got hotter, and we were dying by the time we reached Vevey where we would stay the night.
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| I fostered a deep love of old Fiat 500's on this trip! |
We walked into town along the lake shore and passed by a pool with a children's triathlon in progress. As we ducked under some rope on the course, we could see the little girls' start. They swam across the pool and scurried out, flailing limbs and spraying water. Then they raced around a corner on the wet pavement, and some of the parents had to stand at the intersection to help the girls turn without sliding and falling! The raced to the bikes and biked off out of sight. Many of them would have wiped out on the slippery surface had they not had the support from the adults!
From there we entered a "beach" and park area that was packed to the brim with people enjoying the heat and sun. We heard the next day that this part of Switzerland had been having a cool and rainy summer so far, so everyone wanted to enjoy the sun while it lasted. We stopped in the park and enjoyed a much needed Magnum ice cream before continuing to the hotel. That night we ate dinner in the square and had a nice Portuguese waiter who told us about the area and moving to Switzerland.
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| Sparkly pink Magnum and a sweaty Devon |
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| Beach day for everyone |
The next day we had a very late start as I finally spent some time at the hotel computer getting a blog post up. After that glorious success, we walked around Vevey looking for a cheap and small computer to buy so I would be able to continue blogging along the route. Finally, at midday, we left Vevey. Most of the day we walked on the lakeside path again, but this time we didn't go up into the terracing and instead enjoyed the shade and breezes along the shore.
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| Fishermen's chairs attached to the rocks!! |
We walked through Montreux which was a huge summer resort town. Montreux is famous for its jazz festival, and it had the most beautiful flowers and musically themed sculptures along the lakeside path. When we stopped for lunch and tried to order iced coffee, the servers were baffled by our request. Apparently, this isn't a thing in Switzerland, and most of the time the waiter either looks confused or even scandalized! We quickly realized that we needed to order a cafe au lait and a glass of ice and do the heavy lifting ourselves.
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| Jazz sculptures |
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| Lindsay Stirling? |
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| Whatchu doing there? |
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| Beautiful flowers lined the path for kilometers! |
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| Street vacuum aptly named "Glutton"- Dad and I liked the Swiss humor! |
I was very excited for the afternoon portion of the walk because we would be passing the lakeside castle of Chillon. We arrived there about four in the afternoon and met a man who had just walked over the Grand Saint Bernard Pass a few weeks earlier. He gave us some advice and me a stamp for my passport.
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| Chillon Castle |
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| Looking towards the Alps... which you can't see behind the clouds... |
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| Arrow slits and murder holes oh my! |
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| The castle is on an island and only connects to land by its main entryway |
The castle was incredible! Huge and very well laid out. We started our visit in the bowels of the building seeing the crypt, storerooms, and prison. Moving up into the residential areas we found that we were following an Orthodox Jewish family of nine! Seven kids, all between infancy and ten years of age! The children were on a rampage and clearly enjoying themselves creating a ruckus. Their long-suffering mother tried corralling them into some semblance of order while their father obliviously walked around taking photos. My pictures of Chillon are from two different days because when I came back through the second time, I couldn't pass up another visit to the castle- ahem nerd- so some pictures are all sunny and others cloudy!
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| The grand castle! |
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| This date is from the Bernese period of occupation |
The castle was first built sometime in the 10th century. The first written record of the castle was from 1150 and documented that the Savoy family controlled the castle and through it, the pass through the Alps. The Savoy dynasty ended their rule of Chillon in 1536 when the German-speaking Bernese besieged the castle and captured it. While under the domain of the Bernese the castle changed its function from residence to fortress and prison. The Bernese controlled Chillon and the pass up until the end of the 18th century.
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| The first courtyard |
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| The island that the castle is built on plummets into an underwater cliff |
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| The castle took its shape from the island |
Chillon Castle had its own vineyards and wine and stored it in barrels in one of the cellars!
Descending into the bowels of the castle we walked past cellars and the postern gate which opened up onto the lakeside of the castle for easy loading and unloading of goods and also as an escape route for the occupants. The door was used as an escape by the Savoy when the Bernese besieged the castle in 1536.
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| The postern gate |
It was during this period that Chillon imprisoned it's most famous prisoner- Francois Bonivard. Bonivard was a religious man of the Reformation who was imprisoned by the Savoys and spent six years chained to a column in the storehouse-turned-prison underneath the castle. After he was released by the Bernese, Bonivard wrote about his imprisonment in the castle. He told how all he had of the outside world was a few small high windows that he couldn't see through, but he could hear the waves crashing against the rocks which was psychological torture in a way- he never knew if he was actually imprisoned under the water or not. Bonivard's experience inspired Lord Byron so much that he visited the castle and the prison. Lord Byron then went on to write The Prisoner of Chillon, a romantic poem that was so popular that people flocked to see the castle. Byron wrote the poem in the first person, and it was so gripping that many believed that Lord Byron was the prisoner, not the writer of the verse!
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| Bonivard's prison |
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| A crucifixion scene sketched on the wall- it might have been drawn by a prisoner |
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| Bonivard was chained to the third column down |
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| Signatures of visitors who flocked to see the site of Byron's poem |
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| Byron's signature |
From the cellars, we moved up to a large dining room. This room still retains its original 13th-century wooden columns and 15th-century wooden ceiling. The walls were repainted in a medieval fashion when the castle was remodeled. The fireplace is massive so that they could prepare feasts and cook whole animals.
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| Gorgeous 15th-century wooden ceiling |
Next, we made our way into the "Bernese bedroom" which would've been used for a guest bedroom in the Middle Ages. The room is named for its Bernese style wall paintings dating from the end of the 17th century.
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| I thought this door was pretty cool |
The bed is almost a square shape which shows how people were both shorter back then and slept partly sitting up!
This stove was used to heat the room. There were stairs on the side for a person to climb to warm themselves in the middle of the night too!
The map on the wall showed an 18th-century view of the area around the castle. I got all excited seeing the towns that I had walked through on the map!
The Coat-of-Arms hall was a grand reception room that had been decorated around the ceiling by a frieze of Bernese bailiffs who lived in Chillon from 1536 to 1733.
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| Bernese bear |
They also displayed a replica of a medieval bath in a dressing room. I appreciate that they showed how medieval people bathed! It is a myth that they never washed!
The lord's bedroom was glorious! The walls have murals entirely covering them from the 14th century Savoy period. They show real and fantastical animals in a field of fleur-de-lis.
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| Deer and camel |
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| Deer, boar, and ostrich |
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| Lions and leopards |
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| All the fleur-de-lis were filled with silver foil and the crosses with gold foil |
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| A Bernese addition to the decor |
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| What it would've looked like 400 years ago! |
The next stop was my favorite because I really needed to go to the bathroom!!
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| Twin toilettes! |
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| YES! |
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| Down into the lake... |
They also added some medieval prints and jokes about pooping and bathrooms!
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| Lookout for those chamber pots! |
"What is the most noble and upright plant of the forest? 'Tis the holly! for no one uses it to wipe his behind!"
"What is the most joyful thing in all the world? 'Tis a fart! For it sings from its birth until it fades away."
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| This just looks complicated! |
I then exited out of the residential wing of the castle and into a courtyard that had a great view of the lake.
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| I saw the Suisse from a window sailing around the lake! |
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| I found some medieval scrawling on the walls! |
From the courtyard, we entered into the public areas of the castle.
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| Another reception hall- turned kids game room for the day! |
Several of the rooms had the most beautifully painted ceilings!
In one room there was a brightly decorated stove to heat the room, and the restorers had found a sketch of its plan on the wall!
This room was the clerks' room. It had been demolished in the first half of the 20th century and then completely restored. The wall paintings had been reconstructed based on remnants from the 13th century.
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| You can see six of the Jewish couple's children and their long-suffering mother... |
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| The remnants of the destroyed room and its restoration |
One of the cellars had models of the original island and growth of the castle over the centuries.
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| Original island- they widened the gap between it and the shore later |
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| Chillon Castle in the 11-12th century |
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| How it looks now |
I loved this birds-eye view of Lake Geneva and Switzerland. You can see the path of the Via Francigena through the Alps (it's the white line) and can understand how the owners of Chillon Castle controlled the pass road!
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| You can see the Petite Saint Bernard pass at the bottom too |
Concentric walls surrounded the castle. Before they built the walls, the Savoy first smoothed the surface of the sloping island to make attacking the castle more difficult. Later they added the walls and bastion (the three semi-circular towers) for added protection.
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| Wall walk |
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| Smoothed slope to make attacking a difficult and slippery endeavor |
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| Later they widened the bottom of the arrow slits to create gun loops for the use of artillery machines |
The last stop was the wall walk that led up to the keep in the center of the castle grounds. All these pictures are from my second visit to the castle, so the weather was sunny and glorious!
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| The wall walk |
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| Children practicing archery |
Glorious views all around from the top of the keep.
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| Looking back towards Montreux and Lausanne |
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| Looking towards Villeneuve and Grand Saint Bernard Pass |
When we left Chillon Castle, it was getting quite late, and we still had eleven kilometers to walk that day. We left the castle at about six in the evening and the clouds moving in the sky reminded me of that epic scene in Lord of the Rings when Gandalf rides down the mountain during the battle of Helms Deep!
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| "Look to my coming on the first light of the fifth day, at dawn look to the east" |
We only had a little bit more by the lake, and towards dusk, we said goodbye to Lake Geneva and headed inland to the town of Aigle. That evening the walk was enjoyable! It was cooling down as night approached and the mountains around us were stunning especially surrounded by the sweeping clouds. By the time we arrived in Aigle at 9 in the evening, we had been walking in the dark for over half an hour!
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| The signs we followed during the Swiss portion |
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| Getting dark! |
Luckily we found our hotel quickly. We still needed dinner, but most restaurants stopped serving food at nine. We did find one place that let us eat though! We were very weary after that day and slept in the next morning.
Our walk the next day was short, so we spent the morning relaxing and sightseeing. We visited the castle in Aigle which housed the wine museum for the area. Afterward, we sat down to have a nice lunch at La Caveau du Cloitre on their terrace before setting out for our walk to St. Maurice.
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| Aigle Castle front gate and keep |
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| Our walk from Chillon to Villeneuve to Aigle |
Aigle is surrounded by vineyards, and so has a long history of producing fine wines. The castle doubled as the museum of wine for the area and showed several large 18th and 19th-century wine pressing machines.
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| Winepress from 1711 |
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| Another winepress |
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| The more traditional and community-oriented way of pressing wine! |
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| Huge wine barrels |
As we walked through the upper floors, we found some rooms that displayed a sparse historical view of the castle too.
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| Audience chamber |
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| Beautiful moorish paintings on the ceiling from end of the 16th century |
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| Main courtyard of the castle |
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| Dad considering the color of the drapes... |
My favorite room was the Armorial hall. This room had the coats-of-arms of the Bernese Governors in charge of the castle painted on the walls. During the restoration work, tons of graffiti from the 16th and 17th centuries was also found along the walls!
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| 1585 |
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| 1567 |
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| A coat-of-arms with a foot from 1595 |
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| The keep |
Inside the keep, several rooms were used for imprisonment and torture. The graffiti on the prison walls was awesome! Apparently, from one cell the prisoner could only see one building and drew it on the walls to pass the time!
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| Prison drawing! |
The wall walk was beautiful and lined with bright red flowers. There were beautiful views all around of the mountains and vineyards.
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| You can tell that part of the courtyard used to be inside a two-story building. On the wall, you can still see the second-floor window seats and boarded up windows! |
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| View towards Aigle and the valley we walked that day |
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| Second courtyard |
After leaving the castle, mom and I walked up the valley to get this gorgeous photo. Aigle Castle looks like it is floating on vineyards!
That day we continued heading through the valley between the mountains. The views and scenery were breathtaking, and I had my camera out the whole time we walked (hence the thousands of pictures I have of this area!)
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| Cows |
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| Foals! |
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| Rhone River |
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| A quirky Swiss chalet |
The walk into St. Maurice was incredible. The valley had slowly been getting narrower until we walked around a giant cliff face and saw a castle sitting on the ledge overlooking the pass into the valley.
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| St. Maurice Castle guarding the pass |
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| So many places to go! |
We continued around the cliff face until the valley opened up a little wider and the adorable and quaint town of St. Maurice sat before us. That night we walked the main street (which was pretty much the only street!) and ate at L'ecu du Valais. This was another incredible meal, and the food was beautiful.
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| Pistachio crusted foie gras with apricot jam |
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| Pork with mushrooms and potatoes |
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| Gorgeous piece of graffiti art and the tower of St. Maurice Abbey |
We walked around the mountain cliffs after dinner and found several bulky doors for tunnels into the mountain. We wondered if these might have been bomb shelters? What do you think?
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| The next morning! |
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| Sunrise over the Rhone |
The next morning we visited the Abbey of St. Maurice. This abbey was incredibly important and well known in medieval times especially along the Via Francigena, and it was a pilgrimage destination in its own right. It was first built in the 6th century flush against the cliff face. It was dedicated to St. Maurice who was a Roman soldier and leader of the Theban legion in the 3rd century AD. Maurice was ordered to kill a Christian community in Switzerland. When he refused, all his soldiers and he were killed, and his martyrdom led to his sainthood.
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| The church and tower- the tower dates from the 11th century |
During an archeological dig, remnants of the 6th-century parish church were found outside the modern building, and the outline of this building can be seen in the street in front.
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| The parish church from the 6th century |
The main door was gorgeous! It was built in 2000 to commemorate the abbey.
Inside are the names of saints and martyrs in many languages. The green tinge of the doors makes the effect even more beautiful!
Most of the present church dates from the 17th century, but archeological digs have shown the different stages of the building since the 6th century. The modern building has been moved several meters away from the surface of the cliff after rockslides destroyed the previous buildings!
This is the corridor of the catacombs which was a pathway to the sanctuary for pilgrims when they arrived at St Maurice.
Sepulchers cover most of the floor. The oldest ones are covered with terracotta. This area is prone to flooding from an underground fount and these tombs flood even to this day. This source of water is a significant reason why this area was chosen for settlement and, taken with the discovery of an altar dedicated to Nymphs, suggests that this was a sacred site in pre-Christian times.
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| Terracotta tiles |
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| Flooded tomb |
Outside of the abbey, between it and cliff, are all the archeological remains of the previous buildings.
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| The remains of a vaulted arcade |
The ceiling covering the archeological site both protects it from rock falls as well as gives an atmosphere of calm and peace. They created it in part to remind people of the rockfalls that have disturbed this area in the past.
The first building found in the area was a small burial site from the 2nd century.
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| Model of the archeological site |
Next was the mausoleum from the early 4th century.
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| Mausoleum |
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| 2nd-century burial site inside the square mausoleum |
What came next was the first church building from the late 4th century, followed by three reconstructions and enlargements in the 6th, 8th, and 9th centuries.
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| Late 4th-century church |
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| 6th century |
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| 8th and 9th centuries |
You can see the different phases in reconstruction throughout the ruins. The apse of the 4th-century church and 6th-century church have a little red and green marker respectively.
There were tombs laying all around the floors of the churches. One still had a painted cross on its side!
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| Dad in the crypt |
The abbey treasury was a glorious thing to behold. So much silver and gold and precious stones all worked into sculptures and reliquaries.
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| A head reliquary- I think this was of St Maurice |
This reliquary was one of my favorites. It was so intricate and delicate in design, and the whole box wasn't very big at all.
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| An Asian style design |
I loved this one! It looked like the carvers wrote something and then later changed his mind and scratched out the parts he disliked!!
This was very cool. The sculptor designed the scene around the natural colors of the stone he used. So he was able to keep the light parts as the skin and faces of the people and the dark parts as the cloth!
Lastly is St. Maurice astride a warhorse. St. Maurice was from Egypt and would've been dark in complexion but only during the 12th century did he start being depicted with dark skin. Here he looks like a jaunty English knight with a curled mustache!
The cloisters were peaceful and beautiful, and a lovely end to our exploration of the abbey!
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| Gorgeous doors on the way out too! |
After receiving my stamp at the abbey we continued walking up the valley into the mountains.
Finally, we reached a path in the trees, and it felt like we were walking through the alpine wilderness. After walking uphill in the forest for some time, we crossed a bridge over a wide river and headed back down into the valley.
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| The mountains surrounding us were stunning! |
One thing about Switzerland that I loved way more than France was the public water fountains and restrooms! There were fountains everywhere! The water was so clean and refreshing it was perfect! In the entirety of France, I maybe saw two public fountains and three restrooms!
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| Ahhhhh |
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| Some of the clouds looked ominous and we were worried we might get rained on! |
We passed by these signs showing how to defend against tanks! It was very cool and astounding to me that these small concrete triangles could render unless a hulking metal tank!
As we continued walking through the woods, we stumbled upon several beehives. Dad was very excited, and mom suggested he get colored beehives because "they are prettier"...
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| Rest area and fountain |
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| Waterfall |
We also noticed gun ports coming out of several of the rock faces in the mountains! These were super cool, and my dad and I wondered if they were used much or just put in as a precautionary measure during the wars.
Further up the valley, the trees were starting to change colors. It was so beautiful and the afternoon walk was a feast for the eyes! This portion reminded me of Maine in the fall.
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| Follow the yellow diamonds |
In the afternoon we walked past some orchards where giant rocks had fallen from the mountain cliffs above us. We wondered how long ago they had fallen since they looked like they had been there for a very long time!
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| Chalk from climbers |
We found a lone mirabelle tree and ate some of the sweet ripe fruit. I hadn't heard about mirabelles until I visited Brigitte and Francois in Chalons-en-Champagne and I introduced them to mom and dad who hadn't heard of them either!
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| Reeeaach |
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| Château de la Batiaz |
We arrived in Martigny at six in the evening under the shadow of the castle. Unfortunately, our hotel was another twenty-minute walk further up the valley.
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| Covered bridge |
Martigny was much bigger than we had thought and it had a spectacular Roman history. I loved how they showed their Roman history. They had the Roman ruins protected but out in the open so that anyone could see them at any time. The amphitheater was small but well preserved, and apparently, Martigny hosts cow fights in it each year!
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| Via Francigena route |
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| Can you picture a cow fight in there? |
Next to the amphitheater was the Saint Bernard dog museum! We couldn't go, but they usually have puppies!
Nearby were the remains of the Roman baths in a covered shelter with a glass floor. You could see the heat vents in the walls and floor that would've warmed the rooms.
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| Heat vents below our feet |
Further on you could see the remains of a Roman residential street and the Domus Minerva, the house of a wealthy Roman.
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| Some cool outdoor art |
That night we had dinner in the square, and I had my first taste of rosti. This is a traditional breakfast for Swiss farmers and is essentially hashbrowns with goodies on top. I added an egg, bacon and goat cheese.
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| Can you tell I was craving American style breakfast??? |
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| The castle overlooking Martigny was lit up at night, a glowing beacon above the town |
to be continued...
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