21 dec

The shortest day of the year. Luckily. Living in a campervan makes one appreciate light, And makes one dread when the days get shorter. As they have been doing for the past weeks (pat 6 months!).
We started our day in Avignon, where we had ended our day after leaving Taradeau, visiting Senanque – a wonderful abbey, but the magic comes and goes after you have been a tourist to see it four times – and then settling in Avignon after having endured the pre christmas traffic jams. The campground is on the border of the Rhone river, with a view on ‘le pont d’Avignon’ – on y dance, on y dance, I have been singing to Julie, not knowing the other words: sur le pont d’Avignon, on y dance, on y dance. Sur le pont d’Avignon, on y dance ronde et ronde. Is that right?
Doesn’t really matter. We also saw the walled city and the Palais du Papes high above the city. Here’s where the (real) popes hid in the Middle Ages whenever there was a conflict about who should be pope.
When we drove North, i had a surprise for Julie. And for myself in fact. My plan had been tp drive to Le Puy, in the Auvergne. But the campground that was supposed to be open, wasn’t.
So we took the easy way North, via the toll road – did anyone say he would never do that again?- and ended up in the little village Ars, the one from the pastor of Ars.
We entered the village and when Julie saw the church she said: Hey, a wedding cake.
The pastor of Ars lived from the French revolution till 1859. After he died a new church was built. Basically to accommodate all the pilgrims that visited the town.
They had started coming even before his death. In 1857 there were 100.000 pilgrims coming to Ars. They all wanted to meet the pastor or Cure he is called interestingly enough. He was involved in 17 hours of confession calls every day. Can one imagine? And then he still had to take care of masses and eat and shower. And sleep of course. Luckily he could get by with three hours a night, from ten till one, after which his confessions with ‘les Dames’ started according to the clock of his life in his house that we also visited.
It was a wonderful experience. Ars is the third pilgrimage town in France. After Lourdes (Bernadette) and Lisieux ((Theresa). Bernadette is the one with bad eyesight and a vivid memory who met the mother of Jesus about 2000 years after she had died. Where does the believing end and the fooling start. Who knows. There is an admirable culture of sick people visiting Lourdes of which the dutch poet Gerard Reve said: the real wonder might not be that people are getting healed from this holy water, but that no one seems to get sick.
I prefer the pastor of Ars ten times over the saint who had a vision of whomever. Why always Maria, why not go for Jesus instead. Those stories might also be common, I just don ‘t know them.
Ars was memorable. The church inside was very late 19th century. But also very cosy. And it was difficult not to get impressed by all the people coming in to pray. Many young people too. The preferred place was in front of the mummified, or madame Tussaud’s replica, body of the Cure.
We walked around. Admired all the gift shops. With real good manger scenes and all sizes of the Cure. I preferred the life-size ones – he was only five feet, it seems. Would be great in the entrance hall, if we only had a real house.
Ended up in the area of Chalons sur Loire. No electricity. A cold night. Ah well, tomorrow night we’ll be staying in a castle.