From Pontarlier to St Croix

In Pontarlier 25 September 2010

Sitting in a pizza restaurant in the medieval part of Pontarlier after a day of contrasts. Firstly the astounding scenery all day. If you wanted to write a story that included Hansel and Gretel you really ought to come and walk through these exquisite, dark and creepy woods as you walk out of Etalans.

The woods come just after the woodland lane with wild hedges and berry bushes loaded with red berries winding up the hill out of town, away from the roads and into silence. Nothing to hear but the crunch of boots. Out of the forest, and into farmland which could easily suit a cart load of Brueghel peasants. I don’t think it has changed much since the middle ages, fabulous velvety green fields rolling away into banks of massive trees starting to turn to autumn colours. Gorgeous is the only accurate word. And if a young lord came riding out of the woods with a falcon on his wrist it just would not be surprising somehow.

But we got a bit lost (actually we think the bok had a little mistake, a L instead of a R, and it made quite a difference). We had to backtrack along a muddy path and got tired and it was sleety rain and we didn’t know how to find the right path and…you get the picture. We were determinedly calm but fairly dismal. Funny how your feet hurt at those times.
We finally sat down in the rain on one of our sleeping mats and had lunch beside the road (there are simply no cafes anywhere, roll on Italy). It consisted of sharing a bit of baguette and a couple of business class chocolates. Those ever so elegant air hostesses could not have imagined us eating them in that setting in their wildest dreams.

Then on to Etalans, we struggle in cold and wet and, oh dear, the hotel is closed down and the only other lead we have , a few km out of town, is just a restaurant. Pure luck there is a tourist place next door (there are limestone caves there) with someone who speaks English. She gets on the phone for us and discovers that there is no place to stay in Nods or Ouhan, both of which have accommodation listings and are the next possible places, but she manages to get a taxi (luckily as it is Saturday and these people take the work life balance very seriously) . We are at serious risk of being stranded out there and we are wet through and getting very cold. Anyway the taxi driver takes pity on us and come to get us and takes us to Pontarlier and a nice little hotel in the old quarter. If not, we might right now be huddled under a tree. Oh this pizza tastes good!