Day 13: Arras to Albert

September 8, 2023

Heart

Comment

The two adjacent grand squares of town were right by our hotel, so we could scarcely avoid another swing through. Some utility workers with their trucks were in one square, and they called out to me, asking where we are from. On confirming that it was Canada, one proudly exclaimed "Tabernac!", using the common Quebec expletive, and very proud of his knowledge.

Back in the squares. The buildings were specified to be narrow, to afford the maximum number of merchants some frontage. There is a market here tomorrow (and yesterday) so we missed what must be a very vibrant scene.

The town hall and belfry was constructed between 1463 and 1554. The whole thing was destroyed in 1914, but was reconstructed, ending in 1932.

Behind the buildings above can be seen the belfry of the town hall. It is topped by a golden lion, the symbol of the city.

The lion, way up there, looks a little silly.

The town hall building as reconstructed is very impressive.

In a development that will get a lot more coverage below, one of my brake levers decided to fail by leaking its hydraulic fluid. Dodie detected a bike shop nearby, but it only opened in an hour, so we decided to search on. Too bad, because we liked the name. We see now that the name stems from the city hall lion.

When in France especially I am always impressed by the attractive breads. I often take their photos, and sometimes get bawled out by the bakery people. This time I actually asked the bakery lady, and then got this shot.

Our last objective in Arras was to visit the cathedral. There are lots of churches about, but of course only one is the cathedral. We tracked it down, and found not a tall elegant building but a large and blocky one.

Inside the things was huge, and had really big columns, like those below. I set out to walk all around the inside perimeter of the building, but got too tired and had to find a shortcut!

Th cathedral did not seems to have any fabulous art or glass or carving, so I was a bit at a loss about what to record.

Here is a poster advertising the Via Francigena and the Camino.

The art work is rather cool, including the Arras lion and the Camino yellow arrow.

Here in another section was homage to the deceased Pope Benedict. Different popes are more popular in different areas. John Paul II seems to us the all time favourite.

There were a lot of wall murals depicting no doubt momentous events, but we have no idea which.

A final element of some interest was a row of reliquaries, attributed to various saints. In medieval times, these were the engines driving the popularity of churches, as pilgrimage destinations.

We finally left town, heading south toward the town of Albert, near the famous Somme river. We started off with a lovely field of flowers.

But before we could really get the show on the road we wanted to at least try to resolve the brake problem. We made our way to the second bike shop on our list VeloLand, which sounded sufficiently expansive. The very nice young man in the large shop agreed that a new handle/master cylinder was needed, but he did not have one. He kindly started phoning around to nearby shops.

While waiting on the phone calls, we cruised about the shop, which was stuffed with nice looking bikes. We liked these two, and dreamed about swapping ours out for them. But a "quarrel" developed over who would get which colour, so it ended with no sale.

The nice boy found a shop with the lever we needed, but of course it was "somewhere" far away. I would have just struggled on with 1/2 brakes, but Dodie was more persistent. She worked with the boy to nail down exactly the location of the shop in her GPS.

We said a tearful goodbye to all the bikes we had not bought, and set off for shop #3.

We did find shop #3, and it too was large and stuffed with interesting bikes, such as the one below.

When we entered the shop, there was a lady behind a counter, about half way to the back of the shop, clearly "reception". One man was standing near the counter, about 5 feet away, looking rather vacant. So I went up to the lady and began "We were at Velo Land, and the man phoned you..." but I was (rudely, I thought) cut off by the lady who responded with the French equivalent of "Whoa, pilgrim, can't you see I'm busy, you will have to wait your turn, go stand over there." I did that, but then another customer walked in, went up to the lady, and began explaining his problem. This triggered Dodie, who said to the lady the French equivalent of "Excuuuse me, but we were here first!" To which the lady replied the French equivalent of "The mechanic is busy with someone else, so you are clearly goin' nowhere anyway". We were chewing on this, when she suddenly said "Ok, proceed to the workshop section at the back". At the back, after fluffing about with several other people, the mechanic asked us how much time we had to be here in town. "None" we chorused, "how long will it take?". "Could be long, because of all the other customers" was the reply. "Well can you just sell us the part and we'll find another shop to put it in" - a plan I had already dreamed up. But the reply was the French equivalent of "just gimme that bike...". The mechanic then rolled the bike behind his counter, and while fluffing about with two other customers, in five minutes (five minutes!) had perfectly replaced the lever/cylinder!

The mechanic holds the defective part. Total repair cost 40 euros. Time required 55 minutes standing, 5 minutes work. Not bad!

We could now set off on our actual route for the day. It turned out to exactly be the Veloroute de la Memoire, which run from Arras to Albert.

The route exists because it approaches the river Somme, scene of the the most horrendous fighting in WW I. But at first we could just enjoy the often shaded path, the mystery bird you see below, and the curious "his and hers" silage bales.

The ride was nice, but it was made difficult, maybe dangerous, by the very high temperatures. We took care to drink really a lot.

We arrived at last at Thiepval, a place made so famous in our consciousness by the song "Letter to Marie" by Canadian singer Doug McArthur. This is one of the most intensely powerful songs we have ever heard. It includes the line "I'm hanging on the wire, in a place called Thiepval, in the valley of the Somme, on the other side of hell".

What this is all about is the battle of the Somme, which ran for 141 days in 1916, and had recurrences in 1918. The battle began, as the song recounts, on the first day of July, 1916. On that day the British army suffered its greatest losses in all history. They had begun with artillery shelling of the German trenches, hoping not only to stun the Germans but also to rip up the barbed wire. Neither of these worked, and when the troops went over the top, they got hung up on the wire, and then mowed down by the Germans. This why, in the song, the soldier is "hanging on the wire".

Some of the major participants on the British side were Irish, and that's why the song notes that "many a savage Ulsterman had had his final fight". One of the first things we passed here was the Ulster Memorial Tower.

Doug's historical accuracy in making this song is perfect. We assume he had been here. Certainly there are many books written about this place, and I guess he could have referred to those. When we first heard this song about "a place called Thiepval" it meant not a thing to us. But it is all very very real. Listen to the song, and then pass though Thiepval with us:

The British/French and German trench lines ran loosely north/south as the Somme runs east/west.

Further north from the previous picture (and on the left) is the town of Albert (where we are tonight) and north of that is Thiepval.

There are very many books written about this exact place. Maybe a little sadly, in the museum shop you can also buy mugs, keychains, and no doubt bubble gum cards.

We carried on to Albert, where we were greeted by this welcoming committee:

Our place in Albert is another Air BnB type arrangement, with a lock box. As usually seems to happen, the space is much larger than one would have with a hotel, and in this case there is also a kitchen and a washing machine. The washing machine was intriguing, as a way to get some of our stuff cleaner and dryer than usual. The only thing, European washers, and stoves too, probably sidestep language issues, have everything marked just with pictographs. The main dial of our machine here has 15 pictographs, and we can scarcely figure any of them. There is also one push button that seems to select between 3,6, 9, and 12 hours. I thought this could be a delay timer, but no, once we pushed start the thing launched into a complex series of noisy spins and stuff, that did last 3 hours! Dodie says the stuff did come out clean, and smelling good. The latter must be due to our having shoved in some shower gel, lacking any official soap.

European readers, do you understand this stuff?

Today's ride: 67 km (42 miles)
Total: 569 km (353 miles)

Rate this entry's writing	Heart	8
Comment on this entry	Comment	0