Being In Belgium: fun and trouble

Monday, October 05, 2009

fun and trouble

Friday - A day hike from La Roche Pot (LRP) to Montaigne des Trois Croix. I started with a tour around the circumference of Chateau d LRP (did not want to pay 7.5 E entry fee.)

A branch of one of France's Grand Route hiking trails turned off the back road rising east out of town. A sign promised “dolem, 300 meters.” I topped a ridge covered with a mix of long wild grasses and scrub brush that often lined up and locked in the folded lands. Below, pastures and farm fields reached thumbs up into the hills.

The dolmen is a horizontal gray slab as wide as a man, and almost twice as long. 2 feet thick, it was somehow prized out of the ground tens of centuries back and wrestled atop two base stones. Look close behind the bushes and under the wide top and you can see them, weathering further into the highland.

The sun illuminated fields, woods, vineyards and towns in fleeting patches. I sat down off trail to soak it in. While solving the thorny Burgundian maze to remount the trail, I encountered an embarrassment. Beside a small burr oak, a young woman squatted to answer nature's call, buttocks lit with October sunshine. I turned away and hurried off in the other direction, hoping I'd escaped undetected.

Hawks and peregrines swooped up and over cliff faces, their cries piercing the breeze. I hiked up the ridge, down, past a stone quarry guarded by thickets of blackberry like razor wire and a duplicative strand of barbed fencing. Under a row of trees, through open highlands, across a road, through a corner of forest, along an old stone wall until the scrub trees lowered and fields revealed the top of Mtg. Des Trois Croix. Three. Ugly. Concrete. Crosses. Erected in the past 80 years. An inspiration for who?

I finished the climb, ate lunch and read the magnificent central chapter of Moby Dick where Ishmael, at the oar of a whaleboat, first encounters the great white beast and nearly loses his life.

The mountain top presented, as if with the sweep of the maestro's arm, vistas due enthusiastic applause for the glorious concerto of the Cote D'Or. I was able to trace with my eyes almost all the cycling I'd done during my first days here. The signs on top of the hill say Mont Blanc is sometimes visible. I saw something in that distance but nothing identifiable.

Just below the summit, a sign gave hints about the location of several more dolmens, called Dolmen des Cul Blanc - “White Ass (buttocks) Dolmens.” I criss-crossed the hillside in search of twinned protuberances - maybe inflated versions of a Magdelinean fertility goddess? But what I found amidst the gorse was one three foot wide puckered indwelling of rocks far whiter than the ridge on which it rests. Imagination? Misinterpretation? Or was this a “cul blanc?”

On the return trip, I did not get behind anything remarkable until the very end when I happened upon two 20 euro notes fluttering in the grasses beside the trail.

I stopped at the Relais de Chateau hotel/bar/restaurant which reopened today. Coffee and wine – 2007 Beaune, rouge, La Bonne Fueves, Dom. Billard Pere et Fils from LRP. Tasty pinor noir – though the proprietress either could not understand my French or did not know what grapes were involved in the red or white wine of the town. I read the newspaper – Le Semaine Weekly Illustrated – 2 May, 1943 – with a full front page photo of collaborationist PM Pierre Laval, in an airplane on his way to meet Adolph Hitler. And Le Petit Journal, May 22, 1904 – reports of the Russo-Japanese war. And a 1950s book on Romanesque churches in Bourgogne – I have to see the Cathedral at Autun and St Philibert's in Tournus before I leave.

A cool walk ¼ mile back to the gite and supper of sausage and brussels sprouts. 25 – 30 km?

October 3,

Overdid it today with an nine hour outing. 110 km (66 miles, I estimate.) Drove car and cycle to Pouilly en Auxois and saddled up for a trip down the canal de Bourgogne to the east. Easy, level path along the canal, in farming not wine country. Cool and mostly sunny. Few other cyclists, lots of anglers.

20 km out, a bit boring so I took a side trip north to Vitteaux – upwards most of the way. Before getting to there, I stopped and walked around an archeological site Mntg. de Myard (510 mtr) that is poised on a plateau atop a cliff above the valleys of the Brenne and Armancon. 6000 years ago neolithic people settled and built defensive walls. 2000 years later (4000 bce) bronze agers resettled and build higher walls. The walls and burial stones (walls partially reassembled) are there yet. Densely populated by deer and wild boar and birds if scat and sounds are any clue.

I stopped in Vitteaux for coffee and ice cream and photos before heading back to the canal valley. On the way stopped at St Thibault to see a romanesque chruch with a large early gothic tower added on. From there I headed further downstream towards Venarey Les Laumes, 43 km from the start (not counting the side trip of 25 km).

Easy going until a trio of teens was fooling around and one jumped into my path – crash! Not into the canal, not into the pines that line the path. But down I went. Kid OK, a scrape on the bridge of my nose and some developing aches and pains. Took a photo of the garcon to see it the camera worked – yes. Straightened the handle bars and off I went – finally reaching my outbound destination at 4:45. I had something to drink and bought a bottle of water for the return trip against an easterly wind back up the canal path (yes up, lots of locks for good reason).

As I pedaled hard, the sun sank faster and faster over the mountains to the SW and the full moon rose over the mountains to the east. A wild boar sow and her kids frolicked in a field across the canal. The Charlerois cattle's white hides were lit by both sun and moon as I hurried to escape the darkness and now frigid sweat-soaked clothing, Fortunately, the path was mostly limestone that picked up the remaining light. I pulled in at 8:30 and decided to eat in Pouilly to warm up and rest before the 40 minute drive back to LRP.

85 km. 245 in B, 545 in France.

October 4. Worst. 12 hours. Ever.

I first attributed lack of sleep to the 9:15 pm coffee and pain finally developing from the encounter of crotch, seat or tube in the crash. Later – food poisoning – that rich ham-based pate? Cold sweat. Dry heaves. Pain throughout lower abdomen. Too weak to walk far. Then noticed a gas smell and could not see any error in stove valves. So I turned off the valve at the tank, opened up the door and windows to the cold morning, wrapped myself in blankets and sat outside. Better but not good. Freezing hands. Weak still. Uncomfortable to say the least. I had the electric heater on but windows open so decided to drive the car up hill and run the car heater and read. I did not get any reading done but stayed there for 90 minutes. When I came back, felt better - enough to lie down and nap for 2 or 3 hours. Much improved, I ate some lunch and have sat around all afternoon. Will leave the gas off and talk with the owner tomorrow. I don't know what all the causes of this were, but it was hell and probably very dangerous. I still hurt from the collision, a half-hour walk was enough this afternoon when the clouds finally cleared, but I think that the worst problem was the gas.

Tonight an interesting show on Arte TV on the architecture of the 2001 mediatheque in Sendai, Japan. It includes lots of glass and pillars made of twisted assemblages of piping, that within the columns are run elevators, HVAC, etc. It and the floor supports are designed to resist the twists of a powerful earthquake. Each floor looks very open as the support pillars are unenclosed – exterior walls are glass. Privacy from sight on some floors is achieved by moveable translucent white curtains that can configure spaces in a wide range of options. Walls for hanging expositions slide freely with one person pushing and lock into place in desired variations. OK, enough – who knows how long the show and your patience will last.... Architect's name is Ito Toyo.