Entry 18 October 21 Centre Villes

[David and Susan Bratt]

Entry 18--October 21

We have spent the last two days prowling around the centre villes (city centers) of Avallon and Auxerre and stumbling upon the medieval village of Vezelay. In Avallon we were given a personal tour in French of a remarkable costume museum, by a little old French lady, wrapped in a shawl, who could barely make it up the long flight of stairs. She just ignored the fact that we barely understood anything she said. But the costume collection was quite wonderful, even if it was moldy in places. And it was quite effectively displayed in rooms decorated to match the period of the costumes. The rooms were filled to overflowing.

Avallon was where one of the pedals fell off David’s bike. Our folding bikes attract more attention than our Minnesota license plates. David had been unhappy with one pedal and managed to strip the threads while trying to fix it. Remarkably, it fell off as we rode back to Rover, which happened to be a good half mile away, all downhill. The next day we found a Menard’s type store called “Bricoland”--the whole thing would fit in Menard’s lighting department--and purchased some nuts, bolts, and washers and David created a new pedal. We were off on our bikes again this morning--to a street market in the rain--to buy our baguette.

After the bike incident we started looking for a campground. One we were looking for had an extremely tight looking entrance, so we drove on to another that turned out to be a treasure. The camping signs led us to Vezelay, a medieval walled village high on a hill. After we found the only level spot in the campground (tire wedges are required), we walked the ten minutes to the village. Since it was Sunday night after 5 PM we were not expecting much, but were surprised to find lots of people, open shops all on a single street that went basically straight up to the basilica at the top. It is said to contain relics of none other than Mary Magdelene, who is said (at least by the French) to have made it to France toward the end of her life. It was a beautiful clear day and the views from the top were pretty amazing.

Today we spent getting lost and getting into and out of centre villes, driving white knuckled at times, trying to find a campground in the rain. The bicycle museum we finally found was closed. The campground is right on the edge of the village of Grez sur Loing: the guidebook says, “Do not try to tow a camping trailer through the village.” We approached it from the other direction and we will be sure to check it out before we head that way tomorrow towards Fountainbleau.