WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago – Day 21

Dissay to Ligugé Abbey: 28km

It’s an easy walk to rejoin the path in the morning. The ladies from the albergue have given us little pieces of paper with a map and instructions. So my school lessons on directions finally come in useful. When directions are given, I usually just listen for the first one and then ask again. This is like checking the answers in the back of the book.

The path is simple, well marked once you get to it, and at this stage, with plenty of little resting points, which make a huge difference crossing the fields. We’re walking in formation now, at a distance from each other: me, Marie half an hour in front, and JB and Mathias a way behind. It was a good night at the Guinguette.

I bump into Christophe, a local out walking the trails, five kilometres out of Buxerolles. The moment I say bonjour, he says, “Ah, you are the English.” He’s been chatting to Marie. When I tell him there are two more coming, he says, “Yes, yes, I know. I will meet them soon.”

Christophe has done the Caminos from France, but stopped at Burgos in Spain. When I asked him why, he said because the Spanish were not friendly. I’m surprised at this, and wonder if this is a result of the ever-growing numbers on the Camino Frances route.

On Christophe’s advice, when I’m given the option, I take the route that goes via the Pas de Saint-Jacques, the footprint of Saint James. I have a hell of a time finding it. Luckily, it’s in the vicinity of an out-of-town Lidl, so I’m able to settle myself down with a couple of cold drinks and a box of macarons in the car park, and look at the map properly. Turns out it isn’t on the offshoot of the dual carriageway I’d been exploring. It’s through a pleasant residential quarter on the other side of Lidl.

When I get there, it’s quite a moving spot. Not because I actually believe that Saint James trod here and left an imprint in the rock, but because for nearly a thousand years people have come here believing that. I put my feet and my sticks into the imprints and I think how pilgrims in the 1100s would have done the same thing. And they wouldn’t even have a photo to show for it.

I see that the church that they all used to go to afterwards is just around the corner. From the outside it looks quite modern, but when I get inside, it’s a beautiful 11th-century Romanesque place. The women inside are cleaning it. Devotion.

From Buxerolles I follow the Roman road all the way in through the suburbs of Poitiers, until I finally hit the centre. Going via one of the most unlikely but beautiful edges of a city I’ve come to. Under the flyover, the streets are still the old beautiful streets, and local artists have been painting away. There’s a place for leaving donations of all kinds. It feels like a place with real heart, not forgotten underneath the cars.

But I’m in Poitiers now, the city of spires, and I go to the cathedral to see Eleanor’s window. Apparently it’s the only picture surviving of Eleanor of Aquitaine. I’m not sure I could really identify her in a crowd from the small replica stained glass, but I get a postcard anyway.

Then across the road to the baptistry. At first I’m surprised when you’re charged a whole four euros to go in, but when I step inside I understand why. The work that must go into restoring and keeping this place as it is is incredible. Merovingian paintings all over the walls, sarcophagi recovered, the original baptismal pool. The sense of history is quite overwhelming. Visitors sit on the benches around the centre and stare at the ceilings in awe.

While looking for the UNESCO-listed church of Saint-Hilaire, a man walks up to me and starts asking me enthusiastically if I’m on the chemin. It turns out Jean-Charles is also going to be walking all the way to Santiago and seems happy to have found a fellow pilgrim. I tell him that I’m not staying in Poitiers but moving on to Ligugé today. But I am sure that we’ll meet again. It’s a long way to Santiago. And stranger things have happened.

After Poitiers, the walk is pretty much perfect, even though it’s the heat of the day. The path follows the banks of the Chaine, and as it’s a Saturday, the banks are covered with groups of people enjoying the sunshine. It’s about as happy a walk as you can get.

My map suggests making a huge loop, as there is no crossing for the river, but I have noticed a dotted line on the map at one point, which I dismissed as being a ford. Then, at an information board, just as I’m about to choose my route, I see that the dotted line is a self-propelled ferry across the river.

I’ve always wanted to do one of these. It becomes about the most exciting walk I’ve ever been on. I’m walking along on the path and muttering under my breath, “This is so exciting, this is so exciting.” Thank God no one’s walking behind me. That’s happened before.

When I get there, a family are just coming across, and they hold it still while I get on with my rucksack and my sticks, and I pull myself across as fast as I can.

On the other side, a woman and her daughter are waiting, and the woman is as scared as I would normally be about stepping onto a wobbly boat. So together with her daughter, I reassure her and hold the ferry steady for her. I don’t know if that got her on, or the fact that there’s someone watching her, but she does. And off they go.

When they reach the other side, I shout out a large “Bravo!”, and we wave each other goodbye from opposite sides of the bank.

I arrive at the abbey just a few minutes later than planned, but also a few minutes after the start of Vespers. Luckily, a lay member sees me and takes me into the chapel, where I join the service.

I’m distracted from the spiritual content by my own social awkwardness and my thoughts about what makes someone become a monk, and how they feel, and how it works, and just like with the nuns, how they keep so neat and tidy. I’m given the order of service and recognise the psalms, which brings me back into the room.

When Vespers ends, the lay member indicates that Frère Laurent-Marie will come to me if I wait where I am. And so he does, and leads me, almost in silence, with just a few words where necessary, to my lovely little study-bedroom, and shows me where dinner will take place.

It’s in half an hour’s time, so I set an alarm, in fear of being late for dinner, and arrive clean, cleanly clothed, on the dot of seven. But just on time is late in this orderly order. I catch them mid-grace.

The meals are kept in silence, which I thought would be a relief, socially, but it’s amazing how socially awkward you can be even without words. I relax into it more as cold tomato soup arrives, a plate of fresh fish, yoghurts and fruit. Simple and good.

I’m also fascinated by a woman next to me who keeps on saying, “No more, more, much more,” every time the servings are given out.

Afterwards, while I’m standing around idly with a few of the men, not quite knowing how to make myself useful, while everyone is clearing up, the woman approaches me. She is Claire, another pilgrim. She breaks the rule of silence, which I think is allowed to be broken during the drying-up phase, and we happily talk about the walk and our plans. This conversation I can do in any language.

After dinner, I join everyone for the vigil, this time without the service sheet, so alone with my thoughts, and I set up peacefully for the night.