To Santiago/A sort of pilgrimage (CHERBOURG TO VÉZELAY): Peter Murtagh's journey to Santiago takes a strangely religious turn.
Suddenly our destination is there without warning, even though we have been heading towards it for two days.
The road is winding its way through a hilly, forested area - a change from the undulating but uninspiring countryside of Normandy, followed by the dull, windswept flatlands around Chartres and on to Orléans.
Around another corner, out of the woods and there, through a break in the hedgerow, it is: Vézelay, a tiny village perched on top of a hill. And at the very top of the village stands the basilica, mistress of all the surrounding countryside.
Vézelay, starting point for one of the main pilgrim routes to Santiago de Compostela in northwest Spain, is bathed in late afternoon sunlight. Tourists amble through narrow cobbled streets as Tony and I ride slowly up towards the church.
It is a simple enough mainly Romanesque building, nothing too ornate. The nave was built from 1120 to 1140, then the porch in 1145. The choir behind the altar (1165-1215) is Gothic. There's a 13th century chapel in the south transept and a cloister.
There are no stained glass windows (unlike the cathedral at Orléans with 10 huge depictions of the local heroine, Joan of Arc) and the only wall mountings are a line of six-foot high plain wooden crosses marking the stations. It is reputed that the remains of Mary Magdalen are interred here, in the crypt under the altar.
Some enterprising monks in the ninth century reckoned it would be a good thing if they brought her remains from their then resting place in Provence, where she had taken refuge in the mountains of Sainte-Baume having fled Jerusalem following the death of Christ.
Since then, the monks have never looked back. Vézelay rapidly became a place of pilgrimage and an assembly point for pilgrims going elsewhere, notably to Santiago.
As I stand in the porch gazing at one of the few stone carvings (a frieze that could depict a line of pilgrims), the sweet sound of singing voices wafts through the air like the aroma of good food in preparation.
Inside the basilica, 11 sisters of the Fraternities of Jerusalem, a contemplative community founded some 30 years ago whose members sing the praises of God three times a day, are doing just that along with eight brothers of the order.
They include Sr Clemence who, like the others, divides her time between her religious duties and her work in the community. She is a biology teacher.
The music has been composed by a Dominican, André Gouzes, who Sr Clemence later tells me lives in the south of France. Unlike much contemporary religious music, to my ear it is soft, gentle, harmonious and completely seductive. The sister and monks are all clad in pale cream capes. The sisters also wear pale blue pinafores and white headscarves.
A musical conversation between them and monks punctuates what I realise after a while is a sung Mass and Eucharist and I'm standing in the middle of it, clad in full motorcycle gear. No one seems to mind. There are about 100 people in the congregation, locals and tourists, some presumably walking pilgrims.
At the sign of peace, the sisters glide unhurriedly from the altar and move among us, clasping our hands with both of theirs and whispering in French what I think is "Christ be with you".
While this is going on, one of the monks, a small man who looks like he came from Indo-China, is playing the organ - Nun bitten wir den Heiligen Geist by Dietrich Buxtehude.
The whole thing is terribly moving and I'm close to tears. I don't know why. And then it's time for Holy Communion.
Now as it happens I'm something of a part-time Prod: I've never been fully able to sign up, preferring to remain outside, nose pressed to the window, curious but incurably sceptical.
But it seems the correct and respectful thing here and now to participate and so I do, clunking up to the altar in my boots and padded motorcycle jacket.
Sr Clemence and her colleagues dispense the host and strangely sweet-tasting wine.
Afterwards when the service is over, everyone chats amiably. The sisters and monks have time for everyone. They are without fault warm, welcoming, gentle and interested in anyone interested in them.
With that, it's over. A largely disparate group of people with little in common save this brief shared experience, scatter to wherever it is they will go.
Tony's back with word of an inexpensive Michelin-recommended hotel down the road within staggering distance of a family-run restaurant. There for €50 a head we have a bottle of local Burgundian red wine each and a feast of salad and prawns and dry cured ham and duck and kidneys and cheese. A perfect ending to a perfect day . . .
- Next: Towards the Pyrenees