Monday 29th – Week 3 – Vezelay sightseeing

Mulling over, as you do, the benefits and freedom of camping versus the luxury of staying in a hotel in Vezelay, it struck me how delightfully appropriate that we were staying in a hotel in a town called Vezelay. Anyway, We've decided to stay on an extra day in Vezelay. It's a nice town, with canals in the low lying countryside around it, so we decided that we'd go for a drive this morning, then have a relaxing afternoon round the town.

While we were walking round Vezelay yesterday, we noticed a brass clam shell embedded in the cobblestones. The clam shell is the symbol of the Camino de Santiago, the pilgrim walk we had seen in Northen Spain on our trip last year. The particular walk started from Lourdes in France and goes to Santiago De Compostela in the top north western corner of Spain. It appears that the Caminos can go from a wide range of places and one leaves from Auxerre and passes throufh Vezelay on the way, hence the clam shell on the road. As well as the Basillica, we've also seen a lot of nuns and monks around Vezelay and everyone was very well dressed when we were out on Sunday night, so it's obviously quite a religious town.

We got going after a relaxing breakfast in the hotel and headed on some very quiet back roads to the small town of Vermenton about 25ks north of Vezelay. We made a number of stops along the way in some tiny villages, but it was nice just cruising along with the roof down and the wind in your hair. At Vermenton, we got out and went for a walk around the town and found ourselves in their beautiful Parc Municipal Des Illes, which as the name suggests is a gardens set on island in the middle of the river Cure. The Cure is partly locked, so there were some river boats parked nearby and the park had some small waterfalls caused by the small dams needed to keep the river at the correct level for the locks. It was a very picturesque gardens and even had a boulorama, which is mass Boule courts for the town's people to play on.

After that, we headed along some even smaller back roads to a small town called Mailly Le Chateau, which is a tiny town with a (you guessed it) castle on the top of the hill. Having walked around the town, the outside of the castle, and taken some photos, we headed back to Vezelay at about 2:00pm – melting with the roof down in the 33 degree heat.

A very light lunch today of a baguette and a bottle of mineral water, was followed up by a walk around the town and then an extravagant 8 course meal with dancing girls and men carrying banners in the evening.