Velay walking : To Paris

With various domestic crises, I didn't do such a holiday in '01. Now in '02, I turned to a walking holiday of the same "they carry your bags" type along the first section of the St Jacques de Compostelle trail from Le Puy-en-Velay (aka GR65), where Belle France were simply acting as intermediaries for a French concern. While I was the only Belle France person doing the tour, at least this time the popularity of the walk meant that I was not alone as I travelled (as the Auvergne and Dordogne cycling had been). And unlike the other tours, I kept a diary as I went, PalmOS PDAs being useful like that.

It was not an auspicious start when the ticket machine at Waterloo International swallowed my ticket as being too sweaty (carried in an inside pocket, between me and a small ruck-sack carried in front (big backpack on back) and chewed it up. Realised I'd left the decent camera at home - just in time to get another one-use one, and now find I've left my Palm stylus behind, and to cap it all, the hotsync I did before setting out has managed to get the keyboard hacks fighting each other, so I am stuck with the default one, and no way to reset now but wait for the timeout before fixing it. *sigh*

At Calais saw brazen queues of migrants heading to the track side in broad daylight, with no sign of any official presence at all. Lunch was a sausage roll and a pastie from the Oggy Oggy Pasty shop at Euston station.

Paris was much as usual, and, this being the day before the presidential election, I was pleased to see very few pro le Pen posters or graffiti. Had a pint of Rodenbach at the Trappiste (4 Rue St. Denis, a usual haunt for a beer-lover like myself), foie gras and magret de canard en cidre at la Galtouse (a traditional French paysan cooking restaurant in Rue Pierre Lescot near Les Halles). And I really need a stylus!

Movie Roundup, 2001

Working in traditional reverse order..

Harry Potter – This was a “take Karen to the flicks” expedition, and not one I'd've gone to see by myself. It was stunningly well cast, and well acted by a sterling cast of British character actors who probably cost between them less than Tom Cruise asks for an appearance. But boring – I was twiddling my thumbs by the time of the quidditch match (a pleasant surprise – quidditch was less boring to watch than read about – I guess they'd choreographed it off some real sports footage). After the Big V had had his come-uppance, I was silently pleading “roll credits now, please” as each scene terminated.
Nitpick – At King's Cross, platforms 9 and 10 face each other across two lines of track in a little annex (along with platform 11) off the side of the main station, and 9¾ would be approached from the railings in front of the buffers; the movie looked like they were going on to platform pi! In the real world, probably as a result of all the tourists coming to see the site, at the start of December '01, platform 9 was decorated with all the Hogwarts banners and such from the movie. I'm still surprised that nothing's been made of the fact that the platform 9/10 area is also the fabled site of Boadicea's tomb!

LotR part 1 - A joy to the eyes, but I was on to trivia scanning immediately, like I did about the 8th time I saw Star Wars, coupled this time with too much of an analysis of how they've gone about realising it within the limited confines of a 3 hour film. You know the sort of thing – “Ah yes, they'll use the birthday party to introduce the hobbit characters, then cut out the 17 years of delay.” “Is that a chunky black ring Gandalf is briefly shown wearing in the first conversation inside Orthanc?” “Spot the elf walking on the snow!” “Isn't the two arrows at once trick shot too reminiscent of some really cheesy 1980's fantasy film,” “Maize and canola are more Sharkey than Shire.” “Aren't the lines ‘They've got a cave troll with them.’ and ‘Let's hunt some orc.’ a little jarring in their delivery.”
We could have done without the crumbling stair in Moria, especially with that magnificent Balrog about to make its entrance with its cunningly ambiguous “wings”. Boromir's death had much of the “Agh, I'm hit! Cue death scene. No, wait, I'm a high level fighter and that only did a d8.” about it along the way.
They were faced with an impossible scene to film (one that so far as I can recall Bakshi wisely dropped completely), and made what I felt was a brave, but ultimately failed attempt at, in the Temptation of Galadriel. Playing it low key would have been better, I feel, as the infinitely beautiful ice queen isn't a one size fits all image.
Yes, of course I'll go see the rest. Unlike with Harry Potter, I didn't feel the time dragging.

OK, now onto the good stuff, in roughly ascending order:

Atlantis, the Lost Empire – This little steampunk/lost world gem felt like an anime scenario that ended up with the Mouse by accident, and certainly wasn't your average cute Disney cartoon – no bursting out into song, no cute slapstick supporting cast. Nothing profound, but it did at least entertain.

Lara Croft, Tomb Raider – This film did exactly what it said on the tin. Well, we could have had dinosaurs, an underwater sequence and the obligatory attack by dogs while in Italy (did one of the game designers have a bad Doberman experience one holiday, we wonder), instead of the dodgy "men in her life" sub-plots, but you can't have everything. A pleasant surprise in that it underpromised and overdelivered within its premise.

Shadow of the Vampire - A secret history of the making of the original Nosferatu, with John Malkovitch as the director. Worth it just for the scene where he demands that Count Orlok feed only on the dispensable members of the film crew.

Ginger Snaps - A pretty damn definitive “werewolf in the modern day” movie, all the better for not being a big budget spectacular. A plot summary wouldn't do it justice - just go get the DVD.

Brotherhood of the Wolf (Pacte des Loups) - The film I made most effort to see all year, eventually finding it on at the late, late show at the local multiplex, presumably because it was thought to be rather recherché in its appeal. For a start it's a French film, with subtitles - And a werewolf(?) hunter movie. Set in pre-revolutionary France. Costume drama meets kick-boxing action. This film has it all, while remaining intelligent, artistic and, well, French.

And at the top of the list? Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, of course. Wuxia done by a serious director. What more can I add about this one? It will be interesting to see what he does with the Hulk

Jemima (June 2001)

Most recently arrived, surviving her brother, born June 2001 — and they were so tiny and fast at not quite 12 weeks! The other cats had just about gotten used to them by their first birthday — Smoke mainly ignored them, except when they chased his tail, when he wearily moved away; Penny squabbled wrestling with Bleys, but used either of them for warmth if they stayed still.

Jemima (torty) is a mighty huntress (taking squirrels as well as pigeons), but is still very timid about people, and doesn't like physical displays of affection (I bear the scars from my attempts), quite unlike Bleys was.

Lady May (Aug 1984 - 19th May 2001)

Named after the combat cat from Corwainer Smith's The Game of Rat and Dragon, here she is in her prime, looking suspicious at being disturbed from her beauty sleep by the flash. She was always the most demanding and crotchety of the lot, and it was rare, though not unknown that she would settle with any of the other cats near her.

She was clearly getting to be an old cat - you could feel her spine when stroking her - when she was about ten, but continued to be a feisty, wiry old lady, though her once shaggy breeches became rather threadbare, as her coat thinned with age. In the spring on '99 she went in for dental surgery [same practice as Frank the Cat of cathospital.co.uk fame] at the same time as Penny had was to be spayed, and we were told she had a slight heart murmur - so we expected that we might only take one cat home. She turned out fine (Penny took a long time to recover from a chest infection she picked up) By that autumn, when her check-up came we were told it wasn't worth giving her her boosters, as she had a growth in her mouth and wouldn't last much longer.

The growth did eventually begin to interfere with her grooming, so she needed dribble wiping up, and bathing (for which she seemed grateful), but not with her appetite. She remained a healthy eater until almost the end. Even on the last Friday, she was happy to stalk out into the garden to appreciate the fine spring weather, despite being increasingly stiff and a bit doddery. Perhaps she did not approve of Penny's attempts to play tig, and she worked herself into an apoplexy, but the next morning, we found her neatly posed in the study, but unable to move, save for shuddering. She could not walk, and showed no appetite, even for treats, still purred if stroked, but faded quickly.

Dordogne

After the Auvergne cycling in '99, I went on the Dordogne single-base holiday in the middle of July '00. The idea was that you got dropped off by van every morning and cycled back to the hotel. Unfortunately I chose the week leading up to the Bastille Day holiday, for which I was punished by rain, a spell of fine weather just having broken as I arrived. This meant that it was cold, wet, and hilly enough to be not fun. Worse, the supplied itinerary booklet was badly enough edited to be nigh useless, and ambiguously worded enough that on more than one occasion I had to exhaustively take all routes out of a village and proceed some miles along each one to be certain it was the wrong one until I found the one actually alluded to (not helped by the French habit of signing random and different habitations at each junction).

That somewhat soured me to the idea (and I swore that next time, I'd take a GPS receiver with me for just such an eventuality)

Auvergne

This tour was based from a workshop in a hamlet near Paulhaguet, itself a small village on the Clermont-Ferrand to Le Puy en Velay railway line, most of the way to Le Puy. Travel was via Eurostar to Paris, metro to the Gare de Lyon, to catch the train via Clermont-Ferrand to Paulhaguet, which has a stop which barely counts as a station. The Auvergne tour itineraries have since changed, even to using different hotels in the same towns.

The standard tours were 6 nights of either Valleys or Velay; I did an 8-nights combination, slightly customised for the fact that one of the usual hotels was hosting a wedding party one of the nights I was there. The accomodation was generally unpretentious, but comfortable with plenty of good cooking at dinner.

Taking the tour in June '99 I spent the first night in Chavaniac-Lafayette (that's Lafayette as in the American Revolution, back when the two countries were in accord about revolutions and that sort of thing), before being transported to the base workshop. The journey from Paulhaguet came back through Chananiac to Siaugues St. Romain for the night, then on to St. Paulien. From here, I took a side trip to see the "fortresse feodal" as the roadsigns put it at Polignac (see picture).

This view is taken from the minor road that runs through the village of Blanzac, which was the recommended route, but for cycling, the smoother surfaced main N102 which cuts through some of the terrain is actually a better road, especially on a Sunday when it's very quiet.

This is one of many castles in the region, which was really only pacified and integrated into France in the last couple of centuries. Polignac's castle was never taken in siege, and was supposedly run by as wicked a set of Barons as you'd ever expect to find in a historical romance. It still looks impressive, even though within the walls, apart from the one tower, there are but a few crumbling bits of masonry and open grass.

From Polignac, I headed north to Allegre, where the ruined castle has left only a grand gateway and a small tower. As I approached the town (on foot, as my chain had snapped between Polignac and St. Paulien - while I could freewheel some of the way, it was convenient that it was only a ten mile walk, though the heat was something fierce), I had wondered just what that thing that was slowly coming into view was. This view is from about a mile south of the town.

Here I rested a couple of nights, taking a day off from the road. When I set off, the weather reminded me that the town is at over 1000m altitude (1107m at the base of the archway), with low cloud providing fog cover as I headed north to la Chaise Dieu, (which was annoying at the time, and is now doubly so as the recent tour routes don't go near this side of the valleys) remaining until I dropped below the cloud base as I headed down the painfully long - 20-odd miles - freewheel to Brioude, with the brakes needing to be pumped most of the way.

Brioude is the major town in this region, and the Hotel de la Poste et Champanne where I stayed was the best on the trip (large comfortable rooms, excellent food, and busy friendly atmosphere). I would recommend this as a base for anyone wanting to do an independent tour of the region.

Now it was already time to return the bike and on the way, another magnificent ruined castle described as a Chateau Feodal, this one at Domeyrat. Alas, I passed this one during the long lunch break, so carried on to the base workshop, and waited, sipping water in the scant shade and sultry heat until my lift to that night's hotel. Given that I was travelling from Brioude the next day, that would have seemed the obvious place to stay, but no, I was billeted at a motel somewhere in between, and taxied again the next morning.

Chartres Cathedral

Various snaps of from a holiday we took in late 98 - staying in Paris, but using the wonders of the 'net to help organise a day trip by SNCF down to Chartres, where we had been briefly about ten years earlier as part of a rather ghastly (friction between a contingent from some Welsh chapel and the coach driver) Paris and environs coach trip. So we wanted to go there in our own time, rather than being chivvied about with not enough time to do one of the guided tours.

Side door at Chartres cathedral

Front aspect

Rear aspect

Detail of one statue in an alcove by the side doorway

Stained glass at Chartres cathedral

Not shown, the Amber-like pattern spiralling in the centre of the interior, mainly because it was obscured by all the chairs set out for services.