17 September 2024

Should be a sunny day today, but it was not quite as good as it had been hyped up to be.  We thought we would do a walk to a local site of ‘Escargots de Cohons’. Unfortunately, the footpaths where my Outdooractive map wanted to take us were overgrown and impassible. So, after 20 minutes we gave up and headed back to the campsite. 

We now drove into nearby Langres, which is a fortified town.

Langres was only a 9-minute drive up North, first through the town of Saints-Geosmes, not much there to keep one, and then to the town itself. At first Langres did not impress, we drove though some terrible derelict army barracks type buildings. Some of which looked disused and about to be knocked down, and others repurposed for the Gendarmes. It looked more like a prison.

We arrived near a carpark, parked, and realised we now had just reached the main town of Langres.  We searched google maps for sites to see and visited a few notable sites.  Lunch called, and most of the restaurants looked dismal (pizza, burger) and empty. There was one, in a small square, which was being dug up and repaved. Being lunch time, the workers were all sitting down eating.  The restaurant we headed to was called Le-Foy.  It seemed to have people in it. We headed there, but a notice on the door said it was full, as we tuned away, a waitress ripped down the notice.  We headed in and had a simple, but pleasant lunch.

The rest of the day, we walked around the ramparts of this town, which is twinned with Beaconsfield in the UK.  It was an excellent trip around. There was a restored rack and pinion locomotive, parked at the top of a foot bridge.  This had been to enable passengers to enter the town from the railway below.  One section of the ramparts had a plaque stating Beaconsfield was 372 miles away?

Further around we could see a statue, The Statue de la Vierge Marie de Langres on a small hillock in the distance.

Finally on completing the walk back to our van, we passed the Navarra Tower. There was a small campsite here. A beautiful place to stay, right in the town, with excellent views across the valley. Rather a public campsite, as tourists and locals are able to walk through.

Leaving the town wass a bit of a disaster. I made a wrong turn, ending up on narrow roads, with 320 degree turns, on steep hills.

Back at the campsite, we had a vey light supper, while the campsite yet again filled up with people on their one night stopovers.