The dubious thrill of speeding downstream has been replaced
by a slow slog against the current. The Canal du Somme terminates at the sea port
of Saint Valery and as we weren’t
about to brave a Channel crossing to England
we turned around in order to retrace our watersteps. Doubling back is not as
boring as you might imagine. You know what to expect and where to stop which relieves
some uncertainty (oh it is such a worry filled life we lead), you get a second
chance to visit the places you missed on the way down and invariably the weather
is quite different which completely changes the character of the trip. So, our
journey back was slower, stress free and best of all, sunny. As regards filling
the gaps on places we missed, Rob cycled from Cappy up to the village
of Villers Bretoneux in order to
visit the Franco-Australian museum which was apparently well worth the hard
slog up 2 long hills. A week previously torrential rain had forced us to give
up at the Australian Memorial and Cemetery at the top of the first hill. Then
on the River Oise we stopped at Auvers which is where Vincent van Gogh spent
the final months of his life and, in an incredible burst of creative energy,
painted many of his finest works.
The stop at Auvers was one of pot luck really. I had it in
my mind that l’Isle Adam was the place that had attracted the artists. We
hadn’t managed to stop there previously as we’d passed on a Sunday lunchtime
and the pontoon alongside a restaurant was full up. Knowing nothing of the
place we’d assumed that the restaurant was all there was to it. This time the
pontoon was empty. Isle Adam turned out to be a sizeable tourist town with
dozens of restaurants and one of the original inland ‘plages’ (beaches) in
France. This one was opened by Johnny Weissmuller (Tarzan) in 1949 and remains
in its original condition with a lovely restaurant (another one).
A small,
pretty park celebrates the history of the French Art with reproductions of
famous paintings made in the surrounding countryside one of which was the Eglise
(church) painted by van Gogh which I’d
thought was in l’Isle Adam but is really at Auvers.
Auvers, just half an hour along the river, has a pontoon and
it was empty. Travelling late in the season has advantages. The village, a
short walk off the river, is overlooked by the church of van Gogh’s painting.
Apparently he completed it in one morning. We walked up the hill behind the
church to the small cemetery surrounded by what, in Vincent’s time were hay
fields. At the moment some are empty having been harvested and others have
other crops. The cemetery has the graves of Vincent and his brother Theo. The
graves are marked by simple headstones and unlike the graves of Jim Morrison
and Oscar Wilde in Paris they are
unprotected by fences. No one has kissed, stuck chewing gum messages, laid
flowers or grafittied here.
Auvers has erected a Van Gogh trail with hoardings showing
prints of his paintings at the location in which they were painted so you can
compare your view today with the artist’s view. We really liked this -at every
one wondering how did he make this out of this? Which is not to say that this
is not a beautiful landscape – it is.
 |
| Auberge Ravoux |
In the centre of the village is the Auberge Ravoux where Van
Gogh lived and died. The tiny room (7sq m) lit by a small skylight that he
rented in the attic has never been let since his death because as the room of
someone who committed suicide it was considered to hold bad luck. The room was
closed off and remains in the exact decorative order as it was in 1890. The
present owners removed the old furniture as they were not absolutely certain it
dated back to Van Gogh’s era so now there is only a single chair.
Downstairs the café/restaurant has been beautifully restored
although I daresay it is now perhaps rather more elegant than it was in the
1890s.
Next stop, Paris.
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