DAY 125 SATURDAY JULY 28 LA CHAISE DIEU

Goodbye Paris. We loved your river and your bridges and your buildings. But we have had had enough of your traffic and crowds.  We have never heard so many sirens blaring. Everyone who drives any sort of emergency vehicle seems to turn on the siren whilever they are driving.  We had carefully planned out our trip to La Chaise Dieu today and had been twice to the Gare du Nord to ensure we knew how to use the RER D to get to Gare de Lyon.  Our TGV was due to leave there at 7.53 so we arrived at Gare du Nord at 7am and bought tickets. As we came down to the platform we saw the dreaded notice TRACKWORK or French equivalent.  We learned that we would need to go a different way.The train arrived and quickly filled up so there was no room for us four and luggage. Plan B was to get a taxi which took half an hour and we got to the Gare de Lyon with ten minutes to spare and found  that our carriage was the twentyfourth one on a train starting from one. After that drama we had a quick passage to Lyon and a small train to Saint Etienne where Ken and Pam hired a car.

MODERN STYLE OF STATION

STATION SCULPTURE OF THE DAY.  RESISTANCE FIGHTER SHOT BY GERMAN FIRING SQUAD HERE.

  Ken drove us to St Germain? overlooking the Loire river where we walked up to an historic church on top of a hill.  Two ladies waved and clapped us as we climbed the hill

and we found a very nice view of the Upper Loire valley.

 We found a bakery open and bought quiche and chicken roll for lunch in the main square which was almost deserted.  At this stage we knew very little about La Chaise Dieu but we were hoping it was like this town.

 As we continued up into the mountains through large tracts of forests we realised we were in very scenic areas. When we found the town our altimeter showed 1080 metres so we were up at Blackheath level. We were in the department of Upper Loire and the region of Auvergne, on the edge of the Massif Central.

Pam found her friend Marg who welcomed us and led us through a tiny alley to her house which she and Robert bought twenty years ago.

The lintel over the front door told us the house was built in 1768.  The letters IM are for Jesus and Mary. The house contained many catholic items from previous owners, added to by our hosts who were former teaching nun and brother.

Marg cooked us pork chops and vegetables for dinner.


DAY 126 SUNDAY JULY 29 FIRST DAY IN LA CHAISE DIEU

We started the day with a lovely walk in the forest using instructions from Robert and found the Square Tower.  Pam went to Mass with Marg and Robert and 200 others in the Abbey.  Robert was very knowledgeable about the history of the Catholic church in France and told us of several miracles leading to sainthoods.  There was to be an annual music festival in the area in August centred in the Abbey and preparations were building up for that.  Malcolm and Lyn had coffee/choc in the Tabac  and explored the town as there was a growers' market in the square on Sundays and Thursdays where cheese, mushrooms, fruit, etc were displayed. Marg organised a dinner at the Square Tower Restaurant named after the edifice we saw this morning.  We were treated as special visitors and we bade Robert and Marg farewell.