23rd of July we were allowed to leave our luggage at the B&B to find a place to charge our bikes in the city. There were exactly two posts for doing so at the Town Hall of Autun. They were cleverly built to put your charger inside a box, which one could close with its own lock to be safe against rain and burglary. So now we could use the time during the charging of our metal horses to have a look at the city, which was one of the most interesting places founded by emperor Augustus as “Augustodunum” in the years 16-13 B.C. It was supposed to be a competitive settlement to weaken the Gallic city of Bibracte, where the Haeduer lived on a mountain top in a so called oppidum as Caesar has described it several times in his “De bello Gallico”.
The success of this city was in the end even competing with Rome and called the “soror et aemula Romae” = sister and rival of Rome. It had one of the largest amphitheatres of the Roman empire built for 15.000 spectators. You can still imagine the size by the ruins today. If you stand on the first step of the stage you still discover how after 2.000 years the acoustics works the same way of echoing your voice as they did in those days. Even the Roman city gates “Porta Arroux” named by the river and Porte St. Andre named by the church it was converted into are still very impressive. The Roman city wall was 6km long and contained 200ha of surface inside. There are still 23 towers left, based on the antique foundations from the medieval times until today.
The St. Lazare cathedral shows in Romanic-Gothic style a Tympanon at the entrance which is signed “Gislebertus me fecit”. That’s unusual, because in those times the artist never signed. Until today it is discussed whether it was Gislebertus who carved the stones or Gislebertus let them be carved. A 3D-film at a little history exhibition opposite the cathedral brought all these historic elements back to life.
It actually made me realize how much effort my Latin classes demanded for translation, and that so much is still based on the Latin-culture.
When we talk about the “future” – this word comes directly from the Latin “futurum”. In the French language it’s called “l’avenir” which has its roots in “advenire”, what means still to come. This connects to the same family of the word “adventure” which includes all the unknown events still coming up in the future. So here we are back on our “Less-is-more-Tour”, facing each day the things to come on our challenge. It demands being flexible all the time with the situations and take them as they come.
Time to leave Autun to discover more. Although the people of Autun just discovered an overnight art action by Marko Kaverni using AI for modern interpreted glass paintings. So much to see! We got our pilgrim stamps, the bikes charged only half way and our luggage back, and we were on the road again. Leaving the city at the river Arroux we could still see the historic Gallic temple which was wrongly interpreted as a Roman Janus temple.
Heading towards the hilltops of Morvan which reach up to 800m altitude. At Saint-Léger-sous-Beuvray we found the only possibility to have lunch at the restaurant “Morvan d’Elle”. The waitress was so friendly and let us charge our bikes through the open window and we enjoyed the Menu of the day. Having our St. James shells fixed on our bags causes now more and more often interesting discussions with recommendations and memories from people who did their pilgrimage.
Now we were ready for some more Gallo-Roman history at Bibracte. It’s one of the projects president Mitterand had initiated as he came from the region and wanted to have more of the archaeological site of the oppidum by the “Aedui” being excavated, and shown in a museum designed by the architect Pierre-Louis Faloci. The city wall in itself was 5km long and contained 135ha. Too much to be seen in only an hour. So we decided to have a look at the museum-exhibition while outside it started to rain. Perfect timing.
When the rain was over we kept on going and enjoyed a long stretched downhill of nearly 600 metres altitude difference. We only had another rainshower on our way and when the sun was back we reached Moulins-Engilbert and decided to look for a place to stay as it was already past 6:30 pm and the next thunderstorm rolled in. While Robert did his research on finding a B&B I did mine on finding a pilgrim stamp in the church. There was a lady who entered with me the church and strictly observed what I was doing there.
In one road a beautiful Simca made the perfect picture with a showcase of the “O Bazar du Centre”, and a lady in her window telling me the car would be for sale, but I excused myself as a biker. In the meantime Robert had found a promising B&B and leaving the village my tachometer showed exactly at the “rue St Jacques” 1.000km. It happened only now, because we also count in the 132km to Kempten which are not shown on the display. The thunder was already close and the owner was waiting for us at the “écurie” = horse stable to get our bikes under shelter.
A beautiful rural country house welcomed us and Marc showed us around. But we had not a lot of time left, because he called the only place being open in the village to make a reservation for dinner, and drove us there quickly due to the first raindrops. He dropped us at the Bazar du centre and here we had again the lady in her yellow green dress who wanted to sell me the Simca.
She was a real original with her own style and she ran the place single handed. Just the welcoming was already a scene like in a Jacques Tati movie. All the guests came at once and she had to organize the chaos by extending tables adding chairs and combining people who didn’t know each other. It was fun to watch how the room filled up with grandparents, young people and children, but it was soon clear the room was full and we didn’t fit in there anymore. So the waiter organized us a table outside under the roof in the backyard and I grabbed a towel to dry my chair from the rain.
It didn’t take very long and a second table was added to ours, and as there was another reservation from the B&B they thought it might be OK to join the person with us. It was the lady from the church. She still looked very reserved at the situation and couldn’t discover anything funny in all the chaos around her. The waitress jumped in and out and excused for the delay and asked for understanding. I asked the waiter for at least some bread with the wine to be not completely drunk before dinner even started. The first hour was over and we still didn’t know what the menu would be when suddenly some salad appeared on the table. With our table neighbour we tried some conversation and at least found out that she came from Avignon and her holidays just ended up in this rainy weather in the middle of France.
Other than being at the same B&B we didn’t have much more in common than sharing water and bread. She was not the talkative model like Nicolai, who just couldn’t stop laughing at all the turmoil around us. Children playing on a one-armed bandit, making Graffiti on the walls with coloured chalk. Swallows flying sharply over the heads of the guests to feed their babies back in the corner. Other guests being added at another table on their own risk of getting rained on in the courtyard. Suddenly our waitress jumped to our table letting us know that they ran out of chopped porc, but they could still offer us fillet of beef.
We took what we could get. When we payed our three courses menu we asked for the waitress name and her e-mail address to send her the photos from the afternoon. Her name was Stephanie but everyone called her Doudou. She was a creation of her own and the most welcoming person in the heart of this village. She gave us good bye kisses the French way three times on our cheeks and just included the lady who stood there petrified by the situation we had her manoeuvred in.
