The Naked Pilgrim rolls on

[Crawley, Jeffrey]

The second installment showed last night in which our Pilgrim, cocooned in his car, proceeded to Chartres warming to his task.

I confess that, in the 30 or so years I have been travelling to France, I have never been in Chartres cathedral. What an error on my part.

The land around Chartres is flat and fairly boring - think Meseta - and the cathedral sticks out and can be seen from miles around like a beacon.

An incredible structure within and without, even the sometimes acerbic Mr Sewell was in raptures.

We were then taken to a farm where they keep goats and produce fromage de chevre - goat's cheese. Feeling sorry for the goats who end up in a ragout when they can no longer produce milk, he mused upon the fact that many a medieval pilgrim would have shared similar lodgings, snuggled down with the goats for a warm but uncomfortable night.

And on to Orleans.

Sewell pointed out that many travel writers advise you to avoid Orleans like the plague and have nothing good to say about its cathedral.  Although it lost its relic (a sliver of the True Cross) sometime in the long distant past, we were urged to visit and make our own minds up about the grandeur.  A nearby chapel DOES have a relic, however, a piece of the robe worn by the Virgin Mary either at the Conception or birth of Christ.  A simple square of silk. Would a simple carpenter's bride have had silk 2000 years ago?

Upon reaching the magnificent river Loire the car was abandoned in favour of an old fashioned, flat bottom, square sailed boat of a type that would have existed 600 years ago sailing the broad, often shallow rivers of France, and very relaxing it looked too.

Before the programme finished he touched upon the story of a Loire ferryman who, in an age when the majority could not swim, would take pilgrims and their horses across for a reasonable price.  In midstream he would capsize the boat, the luckless pilgrims would drown and the ferryman, who could swim, would retrieve horses and baggage to sell.  Be thankful we do not have this peril to face nowadays.

Next stop, Bordeaux

I shall be away on a family holiday for the next two weeks but will record (I hope) the programmes, perhaps some other viewer might like to take up the tale in the meantime?

regards to all

Jeffrey
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