Pilgrim's Progress – Long Distance Walks in Europe and the UK

The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant

Albert Einstein

At around 5.30pm as I entered the little village of Saint-Romain-de-Surieu I spotted a chap emptying a large quantity of empty bottles into a bottle bank. I decided he was probably either an alcoholic or running some sort of hospitality business. As I fished out my contact book to see where I was due to stay the night, I noticed it was in the same street as the bottle bank. After the last of the bottles had been deposited, the chap got into his car and then drew up next to me. ‘Are you looking for the Chemin de Compostella?’ he asked. “Not really”, I replied. “I’m looking for a chap called Michelle who lives in this street” I replied. “That’s me” he said with a grin. “Follow me” he said, “we’ve been expecting you for hours!”

I apologised profusely and then added. ” It’s not entirely my fault. It’s largely due to Fred that I’m so late”.

Earlier in the day, Marie-Christine had been the perfect host. Warm, witty and engaging, the 70 something retiree lived alone in a large 5 bedroom house crammed with books and paintings.

The previous evening over supper of spaghetti bolognese we discussed the state of French politics, French cinema (Coluche and Louis de Funès), detective crime novels which Marie-Christine enjoyed and some of the pilgrims she had hosted over the years. These included a South Korean who hadn’t been able to speak a word of English or French. Conversation had been achieved with the aid of google translate! He had, however, left some remarks in the guest book in Korean, which I was able to translate for Marie-Christine.

We also chatted about the town of La Côte-Saint-André, which I had passed through the previous evening en route to Marie-Christine’s.

I had walked through the impressive medieval covered market place tbe previous evening. It was unusual because it was built on several layers, reflecting the town’s position on a steep hillside.

The town is perhaps most famous for being the birth place of the celebrated French composer Hector Berlioz who was born in the town in 1803. His father was a local physician, reputed to be the first person in France to practise acupuncture. Hector Berlioz passed through medical college but couldn’t stand the sight of blood so, much to his father’s chagrin, ditched a medical career in favour if eking out a career as a musician in Paris.

Of a highly charged romantic disposition, Berlioz first fell in love with a 19 year old neighbour in La Cotê St André when just 12 years old. This was followed by a long infatuation with an Irish Skakespearean actress in Paris called Harriet Smithson whom Berlioz pursued obsessively for several years and formed the inspiration for his most famous work , The Symphony Fantastique.

A mercurial Byronic figure, Berlioz had a number of unsuccessful romantic relationships throughout his life including one with an 18 year old pianist called Camille Moke. When he received news in 1831, that Camille’s mother had ordered her daughter to break off her relationship with Hector and instead marry the heir to the Pleyel piano empire, an infuriated Berlioz hatched a deranged scheme to murder the trio!

As part of the madcap scheme, he bought a pair of double barrelled pistols and some poison. He then planned to travel from Rome to Paris disguised in a housemaid’s outfit and then shoot all three of them (Camille, her mother and Pleyel) in a ‘crime passionel’ and then take his own life.

Thankfully (for the heritage of classical music) the plan unravelled disastrously. En route to the French capital, he lost the housemaid’s outfit, and nearly drowned by falling off the city ramparts at Genoa. And by the time he stopped at Nice his boiling rage was abating, as thoughts of his family, and the works that would remain unwritten should the bloodbath actually happen, ate at his conscience. ‘Love of life and art whispered a thousand sweet promises to me,’ Berlioz wrote later in his Memoirs. ‘I let them speak, and even found a certain pleasure in listening.’

Each year in August, the town hosts a music festival in honour of its most famous son and the market place is transformed into an open air classical music venue.

After a hearty breakfast, it was time to say good bye to Marie-Christine and head off on my way. There was a light mist, but the weather forecast for the day ahead was set fair.

I stopped at Revel-Tourdain for lunch. The hilltop village boasted an auberge but when I poked my head inside and asked about the availability of paninis, the proprietor shook his head and pointed towards the village bakery. The quiches I bought there were delicious and I headed on towards Saint-Romain-de-Surieu, some 20km away.

A quarter of an hour later I passed a sign advertising cold drinks and a warm welcome for pilgrims. I was tempted to ignore it and head on, but my instinct told me that a visit to the Farm of the Thousand Colours was something not to be missed. And so it proved!

As I wandered up the drive to the pilgrim gite d’étape, I passed fields with bales of hay dotted around, I felt a strange sense of excitement. Call it a sixth sense if you like or an intuition that good things were about to happen.

As I entered the main courtyard, I felt as though I had been transported back to somewhere in Asia. Besides a colourful array of herbaceous shrubs was a shrine dedicated to the Hindu elephant god, Ganesh surrounded by fluttering multi coloured pennants.

As I was ambling around the courtyard, the proprietor emerged to greet me. He was called Fred and what an engaging and fantstic guy he was.

I’d only intended to drop by for a quick drink. I ended up drinking 2 coffees and chatting with Fred for 2 hours.

Fred worked in a local bakery from 3am each day in order to make ends meet. Hosting pilgrims was his passion. I got the sense that he was overjoyed to see me and disappointed that I wasn’t spending the night there.

He divulged that he’d moved 19 times in his life. At various times he’d run a restaurant and built a house. He was clearly somebody who was a jack of all trades. Outword going, charismatic and humorous the time flew by as he recounted anecdotes about some of the pilgrims he’d hosted over the years. The time flew by and I was genuinely sorry to leave. My advice to anybody walking the Via Gebennensis is make sure you try and spend a night at the ‘Farm of the 1,000 Colours’ with Fred. My hunch is that you won’t be disappointed.