Town on a hill

Wednesday 3 September

The six of us left the B&B together, but over the next few hours parted company due to pace differences and different routes taken.  The rest of the day was half  ( R & T ) togetherness, and half going our own way.

The landscape was becoming much more rolling and green with rivers and forests.  I thought that I could see a german / swiss influence in the churches and house designs.  

Something happened around midday that has very rarely happened throughout this trip on the French side, and that was that we found a cafe that was open !  We had our coffee + orangina fixes ( I would rather not drink tea, than drink black tea of non-Tetley, Typhoo, Yorkshire, Earl Grey origin ).  

After the cafe stop the rest of the day was hard.  We were heading to Langres, a medieval walled hilltop town.  There were hills and valleys to traverse before arriving there.  I pushed the ups ( with intermittent stops in order to regulate my breathing ), and rolled the downs.  I came across the Italians who were tucking into a bumper size pack of Maltesers for energy ( I still have no idea how they got in front of us ).  

Tony, in the meantime was enjoying walking on forest paths, and on well marked tracks also in direction Langres.

Tony and I finally met each other in the late afternoon, and had our 2nd cafe / orangina break to celebrate the end of this very physical and long day.

Our accommodation this evening was in a flat in the Prespytary belonging to the Cathedral of Langres ( we had heard that there were only 2 beds here and therefore needed to be booked well in advance ).  Our flat was on the top floor of this very old house with wooden floorboards, none of which were flat.  We had a bird’s eye view of Langres Cathedral roof and of the Langres skyline of one particular direction.  We looked out of the bedroom window at one point, and low and behold - our Italian friends were passing beneath.  We chatted briefly and bid them bon voyage for a final time.

We made ourselves a very large carbohydrate meal, with fruit salad and cake for pudding, and watched another film on’t laptop.

Distance - 16 miles

Distance since Helmsley - 901.35 miles