Day 20: Brienne-Le-Château To Dienville

The Église des Saints Pierre et Paul in Brienne-le-Château. The façade you see here dates from the 14th century, but there has been a church on this site since the 11th century.

After a second night in Brienne's hunting lodge, I woke to the pitter-patter of rain. Lingering for an hour in the Musée de Napoléon, I kept my eye on the sky, but it remained uniformly grey. There was nothing for it but to put on my rain gear and set off. My intention was to follow the valley of the river Aube for the next day or two. By 11 o'clock the rain had increased in velocity, and by 12 o'clock it was coming down in sheets. Hammered and lashed, and feeling like a drowned rat, I crossed the Aube and took refuge in the Café du Centre in Dienville. I drank a beer, while outside the rain poured. Gutters overflowed, and the road began to look more like a river.

I asked about accommodation and was told there was a hotel, the Auberge de la Plaine, a couple of kilometres away at La Rothière — the site of Napoleon's first defeat on French soil in February 1814. One of the café's customers offered me a lift in his car. And there I stayed — all afternoon, evening and night! I must admit I did enjoy the luxury of an en-suite bathroom and comfortable double bed for a change. Though the hotel itself was rather eccentric and haphazardly run, it did have an entertainment value, as I watched with hidden amusement the antics of a skeleton staff struggling to cope.

So I'd had another easy day, covering only 6 km in the last 48 hours. How quickly one can slip into laziness! After a fairly poor dinner by French standards — tired charcuterie, bizarre vegetables, an odd-tasting steak sauce and indifferent wine — I slept soundly, then rose early the next morning, intent on a full day's walking. It was still dull, but the rain had stopped, and there was a light breeze. I looked at my guide and suddenly realised I'd walked 470 km. I was exactly halfway through my journey! And completed in three weeks, so I was right on schedule . . .         

Crossing the river Aube into Dienville — the day after the deluge.

Days 17 & 18: Coole To Brienne-Le-Château Via Corbeil

We say goodbye to our delightful hosts: from left to right: Jean-Pierre, Peter, Mathilde, Monique, Ernst and Daniel.

In Humbauville we'd stopped for a rest and a bite to eat (a sandwich Monique had kindly made for us) when Siméon (right) invited us into his family's renovated farmhouse for drinking chocolate and biscuits. His father, Marc (left), arrived soon afterwards. It wasn't long before we were eating mirabelle plums and bread and some deliciously creamy Chaource cheese, a local delicacy! Marc was an agriculturalist and owned a truffle plantation. He also had a truffle hound in the yard. We asked him lots of questions and he cleared up many mysteries: such as what was the purple-flowering crop we'd seen along the Roman road? It was lucerne (known as alfalfa in the US), a member of the pea family, and cultivated as feed for dairy cows because it's very high in protein and easily digestible. We spent a very enjoyable hour or so with this father and son — yet two more 'trail angels' — before continuing our journey . . .

The Roman road goes on forever . . . We just managed to reach the shelter of a grain silo before the storm really hit with a vengeance.

We slept the night in a room (la Salle des Pèlerins) opposite the church in the tiny village of Corbeil. Michel from the village brought us food, including some microwave meals . . . The photo shows a deathbed scene from a tomb in the churchyard.

Inside the church was a representation in stained glass of St Roch, one of the patron saints of pilgrimage. His effigy appears in many places along the Camino. You can see his staff, the plague sore on his knee, and his faithful dog, which licked the wound clean.

Statue of a youthful Napoleon Bonaparte at Brienne-le-Château. Napoleon attended military school here from 1779 until 1784. The school still stands — part of it now contains the tourist office and a small, rather fusty and dusty museum, la Musée Napoléon. Napoleon was to fight some of his last battles against the Prussian military commander Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher in this area: the Battle of Brienne (January 1814), in which Napoleon was victorious, and the Battles of La Rothière (February 1814) and Laon (March 1814), in which Napoleon was defeated. La Rothière was the first battle Napoleon had ever lost on French soil.  

Go on, admit it — you'd love to spend the night in this sweet little hunting lodge at Brienne-le-Château, wouldn't you? Well, I stayed two nights here — for only €10 a night!