Hospitality along the old Roman Roads

Much of the "official" Via Francigena follows existing GR trails, the Grand Radonnée, the long distance hiking paths of France. Sigeric's actual path, the roads the Archbishop of Canterbury walked, or more likely rode, on horse or in wagon, a millennia ago are not known for certain. His manuscript that describes the Via Francigena provides only the names of the "maisonettes," the cities or villages, in which he stayed but we can assume he used the highway system of his time, the Roman roads, as much as he could. In many cases, those roads are gone, paved over, some by major, high traffic arteries. In other cases, they are simply lost, covered by centuries of change. It makes sense, therefore, to use the existing trail system. 

But if you are willing to move off the "official" route, you can find remnants, even long sections, of road Sigeric must certainly have traveled. Some stretch tens of miles. These old Roman roads were constructed by Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa on orders from Octavius for the extension and maintenance of empire. They carried legionnaires to the furthest outposts of Roman influence and food and supplies back to the Roman heartland.

When you find a remnant of the Via Agrippa, you know it. It is usually unwaveringly straight for miles on end, with few major climbs or descents. Walking on that road, covered only by dirt, or clay, or gravel, especially one that runs between two locations mentioned by Sigeric, you can be quite certain that you are walking the path that the Archbishop of Canterbury took on his way to Rome to receive the symbols of his office, one-thousand years ago.

I walked those paths. In the last several days, stretching from a bit just after Chalons-en-Champagne, through Coole, Brienne-les-Vielles and Donnement, to a ways before Bar-sur-Aube, I walked  thirty miles and more of such remnants of the Via Agrippa. These roads are not curious relics. They remain an integral part of village life. When you ask a farmer or a townsman how far it is to a certain location, you are likely to be given a distance followed by "par voie Romaine," by the Roman road.

On this portion of the Via Agrippa there is a feeling of vast emptiness. Fields of wheat and soya stretch into the far distance. Few trees break the horizon. Occasionally, there are copses of wind turbines.  A hog farm announces itself by its stench a half mile in all directions. Otherwise, nothing. 

I walked these roads under clear sky and direct sun, in temperatures near 30°C, 85°F. There was no shade. Even when the road followed the course of a river, and riparian varieties lined the water's banks, the road was in sunlight. The Romans cut these roads into the flanks of the hills, above the flood plain, to assure they would be passable at all times of the year. Shade never reached the stretches I walked. 

I set the alarm on my phone for every two hours to remind myself to apply sunscreen. When the lotion dried, I applied insect repellent, though those large fly-like insects whose bite results in a nearly hemispheric puss filled blister an inch in diameter "ne parle pas DEET." I've been bitten twice in the last six years of my walking. It isn't pleasant.

Here you must play tricks with your mind to help the miles pass. I estimated the tangential velocity of wind turbine wing tips and counted primes. I remember reading that the physiology of walking long distances makes analytical thought difficult and slow. These exercises, therefore, are ideal for passing time. Eventually, I can trick myself into a stream of self-sustaining thought that numbs me to what my physical self is experiencing. But walking these roads, when I finally resurfaced to awareness and checked my GPS, only another mile, or less had passed. 

Each day Patrick and I search for a good place to have lunch. Frequently, we ask our hosts to pack us a sandwich, because even if we pass through a small town or two, these "trous," a French expression for a nothing of a place, have no commercial activity, no tabac, no bar, no boulangerie. Nothing. Sometimes we forget to ask and have to make do with dried figs and trail mix. 

On the Via Agrippa you might get lucky and find a road intersecting the old Roman road. It may lead to a nearby town. But when you are walking 20 or more miles a day you hesitate to make even a small excursion from the trail. Other times, the unpaved section crosses a small village and if you are really lucky there will be a bench. We were lucky only once in the three days we walked the unpaved sections of Via Agrippa. 

I look for a log, a rock, something other than the road to sit on, but instead we have to settle for a small patch where the gravel has been worn flat so the discomfort of sitting on a hard surface is not exacerbated by sharp edges cutting into my bottom. I use my pack as back support and eat quickly. We move on. 

As the day progresses to its end we quicken our pace, anxious for an end to this section of trail. 

As the highest official of the church in England, Sigeric likely was received with great hospitality when he stopped for the night. His trip aimed for stops in the important centers of church activity: cathedrals, abbeys, and monasteries. If he had to resort to inns or private homes, the hospitality may have been less grand, but still to the highest levels available within the means of his hosts.

Today, there are remnants not only of the roads Sigeric traveled, but of the hospitality he received. Thus far on this walk, I've stayed in hotels, B&B's, chambre d'hôtes, and gites, in cities, the smallest of villages, on farms and in private homes. You cannot really know how it will be in advance, though you hope you will be fortunate and stay in one of those few places where you are greeted like a friend, enjoy a really great dinner, and have interesting conversation with hosts who are genuinely interested in learning about you, where you come from, what you think about events. In return, they share the stories of their lives with you. 

Patrick and I were lucky enough to find Roseline and Eric on a farm in the Haute-Marne. I am guessing Roseline's age at 50; I know Eric is 52. She still has that coquettish smile and body language of a young woman and a vivacious attractiveness. He started working the family farm at age 16, a farm that's been in the family for 300 years; at 19 he was running it.

Eric is now an organic farmer but his passion is astronomy. When he delivers papers at scientific conferences, other speakers introduce themselves with their PhD's and CV's. Eric introduces himself as "Farmer." 

I asked him how he became interested in astronomy. Eric is left handed and, as a boy his teacher forced him to write with his right hand. He wasn't good at it so he was punished, forced to stay late at school. Walking home at night looking to the sky, he wished he was up there, not down here. The punishments may have been misguided but they gave Eric astronomy.

That evening we drank homemade aperitifs, ate beef, potatoes, and green beans that Eric had raised and farmed, and spoke about genetically modified seed, his fascination with viewing galaxies, and his love of introducing children to astronomy. 

Another evening, we were the guests of Madame Viviene Jaqueminet. Patrick calls Madame Jaqueminet a brave mother. She lost her husband to cancer when she was 32, he 36. She raised her family and now she welcomes pilgrims into her home. 

This kindly woman loves meeting new people and tells us of a pilgrim who carried a tambour on his walk and played it after dinner. Another pilgrim, who until then had not really engaged in conversation, jumped to his feet with bravos, disclosed that he was an orchestra conductor, and the evening continued with conversation and music. Evenings like these are what Madam Jaqueminet lives for.

The night we were there, Madame Jaqueminet served us cuisse de dinde, (leg and thigh of turkey), slow cooked in champagne for a day and a half. Patrick and I each had a room in the house she's lived in since her marriage. 

And one evening we were the guests of Monique and Jean-Pierre Sogny of Coole (there are a lot of Sogny's in Coole, including the mayor). The Sogny's are of that special breed of host who open their private homes to shelter and feed pilgrims, not for financial gain, but purely for the pleasure of doing good works and for conversation with interesting people. These special places are "donativos" where one pays what they are able, without even a soupçon of what may be expected. Nothing is expected. 

We slept in two bedrooms of their modern three bedroom home. They served a simple farm dinner: a salad of lettuce and tomato I saw Monique cut from her garden, steamed potatoes in their skins along with rillettes de porc and pate de ferme made from the hogs they raised, a fine bio rosé from Bergerac and a red Côtes du Rhône. At about 9:00, when we had already been eating and conversing for more than an hour, two Italian pilgrims on bicycles arrived, Lorenza and Mateo from Trieste. After a first stern look from Jean-Pierre for the late hour and the fact that all the bedrooms were taken, he and Monique rolled out a large air mattress in their laundry room and welcomed the new arrivals.

The next morning, as I was about to place some bills in the little porcelain purse kept on an eye level shelf in the kitchen, Monique cautioned me, "Do not give too much," she said in her good English.  "We do not do this for the money. We are donativo."

At the end of a day's walk, Patrick and I hope for a warm shower, a decent meal, and a comfortable bed. Sometimes we get lucky and find much more.

One need not be Sigeric to find great hospitality on the old Roman roads that are part of the Via Francigena. 

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