Day 54: Paray Le Monial to Montchanin

October 30, 2022

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Paray is a beautiful town, even leaving aside the Basilica. In what had been the centre of town there is the former St. Nicholas church, which in its latest reconstruction is from the late 17th century.

Directly across the street from St.Nicholas is the city hall, which is in a building in early French renaissance style, from the 16th century. The building was originally constructed for a protestant merchant, whose face appears on the facade, along with that of his wife.

Here is the Basilica peeking from behind other buildings of the town.

On the way to the Basilica there are buildings, like these, to welcome pilgrims involved with the Sacre Coeur. The basilica itself is called the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, but there does not seem to be any sacred heart organizational apparatus right at the basilica.

The monastery at Paray has been there a long time, under the Benedictines, but in the 17th century it seems to have become devoted to an order of nuns, the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary. These nuns are into the Sacre Coeur terminology, and seemed to spawn a lot of sister sites. Probably Sacre Coeur in Paris is one of these.

"In the 17th Century, Christ appeared to Saint Margaret Mary. He entrusted to her, between 1673 and 1675, three great messages for the Church and for the world. She revealed their contents, helped in this by Saint Claude la Colombière. It is a message for today’s world in search of meaning and hope which at the same time is entrenched in the symbol of the Sacred Heart and the whole of Scripture." - from a Sacre Coeur web site.

The Basilica ceiling has a very old looking frescoe.

Detail of the carving - which is looking very weathered

The bikes are used to waiting around, as dutiful pilgrims

As we prepared to leave town, a beautiful canal image

In this lovely image, three reflected geese!

Something we have come to really like in France is a form of orange juicing machine that runs fresh oranges in a process right on the spot and produces, of course, the best orange juice possible. These machines are usually found in fruit stores, but today we spotted one in a mini-super. I got sent in with a fist full of coins and was ready to run the machine, except for the posted notice. This asked customers to get a staffer to run the machine. I dutifully lined up at the cash and watched as the old lady in front of me slowly searched through her purse to find her credit card, made her purchase, and had a little chat with the cashier. I then foolishly let a lady who was just buying a can of coke (lady, you should choose the orange juice instead!) go ahead of me. When I got to the cash, the cashier sprung a new one: the orange juice machine does not work on Sundays. I assumed the thing had got religion, and did not press the point. In retrospect it must be that on Sunday the store does not have spare staff to run the machine. Really there is no hygiene risk about it, so it was all just dumb.

Out on the trail we got a combination of quiet roads and canal side path. In all cases, we never felt pressure from traffic. In fact i the first half of the day I was asking myself just how many moving cars we had encountered, and I decided it was fewer than a dozen. Moreover the environment was extremely beautiful, and very often dead silent. It was really swell!

The most notable feature of our surroundings continued to be the clumps and herds of Charolais cattle. They are so calm, but also often interested in what we are up to. We always greet them warmly, and vice versa, we think.

Also of interest among trees are the commonly seen Plane trees, pruned yearly to look like this.

At some point we became aware of another of those really long stone fences. Sure enough, it was associated with a Chateau, the Chateau de Digoine. We know nothing about it, except that it may now be a B&B.

It wouldn't be a cycle tour in France without some annoying and frivolous Route Barree action. Near Ciry le Noble we came upon one of these. Our reaction is uniformly hostile - we dismantle 'em!

We continued to be impressed by the beauty of the countryside here. We tried to identify a place in Canada that was anything like this, and failed. The beauty here is not spectacular, but it is extensive. It is clearly an absolutely top spot for cycle touring.

We stopped for a minute's break in front of the little church in Saint Vallier, and were not sure that it would be worth going in for a look. But we did go in, and were surprised to find some very attractive and bright stained glass in all the windows. It was also casting colours onto the floor. Really nice.

The small church in Saint Valliers. Churches like these are little used these days. Services circulate in this case among about eight regional churches.

Not sure exactly what is being depicted in this one.

Montceau Les Mines was certainly a change of pace. It's a rather large place, and the only one we have seen lately with quite high rise (9 stories) buildings. Perhaps the route did not take us into the interesting sections, but the town from our perspective also seemed to have very mundane and standard suburban neighbourhoods. None of it was unpleasant or unsafe, just boring.

Typical buildings, from what we could see.

From Montceau we again were near a canal (Canal du Centre) and we saw - yes, Charolais. In this case they were all heading for home. It was getting late, and time for us to find our hotel as well. With the time change, we will need to be in by about 5 in the evenings.

Still on the Canal, Dodie spotted some Cormorants high in the trees. We have seen them like that on other days as well. They seem to indicate that there are some fish in the canal, though we have yet to see a fish held by either the many human fishermen or one of these birds.

Our hotel is called the Kyriad, a quite large building standing alone near the N70 highway. While rooms in quaint old buildings have their place, sometimes you just can not beat a modern hotel. Our room here has lots of space, a large desk, large window, and fast and free wifi. The lobby is huge and we freely rolled our bikes in. Later they got put in a locked storage room. Our own room is on the ground level. It is all so effortless, we are really enjoying it right now.

Today's ride: 68 km (42 miles)
Total: 2,321 km (1,441 miles)

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