Along the Ainse

9th August, 2010 (Tony)

The grain harvest is mostly gathered in and the farmers in their giant tractors are flatout tilling the land in preparation for planting next year's crop. Peasant farmers no longer exist in France. There's not a fence to be seen anywhere in this part of the country, just a continuous carpet of vast fields of wheat, barley, sugar beet, corn, or sunflowers. Grain growers in Australia and NZ couldn't hold a bushel to the yield that each hectare delivers here. And every farmer seems to own a range of enormous equipment — probably worth more than NSW Railways, and earning more besides. France is the world's second biggest agricultural producer, exceeded only by the United States. France exports two-thirds as much as the US, a country fifteen times larger. Yet no landscape is devoid of trees. Forests occupy almost every piece of land that hasn't been converted to farms. France can proudly lay claim to having one of the best forestry conservation programs in Europe.

We have finally wrenched ourselves out of Champagne though not without making a few more sorties on motorbike into the region's northern-most vineyards and villages. We have probably explored ninety percent of Champagne's widespread area. We have visited most of the seventeen Grand Cru villages as well as dozens of others, we can now identify the three varieties of grapes, and we understand where each of them is predominantly grown, and we know where a great many of the vignerons are situated. We just can't figure out which ones taste best! We'll obviously have to keep trying until we get it right — we have a cupboard-full to keep us going until our next passing. Thanks to an excellent book that Debbie and Mark kindly gave us we can at least consult the opinion of an expert, Richard Juhlin, a Swede, who has ranked most of the producers in his Champagne Guide. This bloke knows his nose — he once correctly identified forty-three out of fifty champagnes in a blind tasting in Paris. It was a real pleasure to bike up to St Thierry and rediscover one of the prettiest villages in all Champagne and to introduce ourselves to the owners of a B&B where we stayed in 1999. At that time they were 'relatively new' producers of champagne. We had a nice chat, followed by an obligatory tasting and headed back, 8 km, toSable with a carton of their bubbly on the back carrier of our bikes. We have become quite adept at transporting things — a box of begonia plants strapped to our motorbike carriers survived a 12 km ride and are now flowering profusely in place of the petunias which Sally bought before we left Roanne.

We are now on the Aisne, a gentle river that meanders east to west through a wide valley that saw some of the bitterest fighting in WW1. To the north is a high, thirty kilometre-long plateau known as the Chemin des Dames. The French suffered more than thirty thousand casualties in one battle in a futile attempt to drive the Germans back. For almost four years it was the scene of bitter confrontation. Pétain took over from Nivelle after he was sacked. In May 1918 the Germans made their big push, driving all the way down to Chateau Thierry, only forty kilometres from Paris. There, they encountered the Battle of Belleau Wood, referred to in our last newsletter, and with the help of Americans the French turned the Germans back and finally regained the plateau a few weeks before the armistice. We ventured into the Caverne du Dragon, a huge, dark, forbidding confusion of underground galleries and tunnels (previously a quarry) that throughout the war garrisoned troops, both German and French at various times. We are now in Soissons which was eighty percent destroyed in the war. There are war cemeteries everywhere in this valley. It is impossible to forget those terrible days in this region. Just west of here the British sector, with its colonies, held the line of defense through the Somme and Belgium. Of course, wars have been fought here for centuries. The present epoch is the longest period of peace this country has ever known.

Soissons was the first royal capital city in France. It is a nice city but will never be able to claim to be pretty because of the hotch-potch architecture resulting from the protracted restoration but the quayside is pleasant enough and the town is central to interesting sites within easy reach. On Sunday we took a train north to Laon, an ancient fortified city perched on a rocky outcrop overlooking an immense plain. As bad luck would have it the cable car that hoists one from the railway station to the main city a hundred metres above was closed for maintenance so we exercised our limbs and climbed up to the square for a well-earned lunch in front of the magnificent cathedral which soars a further forty metres into the sky. Laon was captured early in WW1 by the Germans who probably felt it wasn't worth defending when it came time to retreat so it was spared any damage. It wouldn't be a pleasant place to be, exposed to modern artillery so I guess they skitaddled out of there in WWII as soon as the pressure came on. A very picturesque town which could easily be walked but we opted for the comfort option of riding in the little tourist train. In hindsight walking may have been desirable compared to the jolting we got over the cobblestones. We returned to Soissons in time to attend an organ recital in the cathedral. The organist was from Finland and his reportoire included a piece he had composed and was accompanied by a violinist. All very pleasant.

Yesterday we took the motorbikes for a spin in the countryside and came across Forte de Conde. The fort was built in the eighteen hundreds as part of a chain of forts supposed to defend France from invasion. As far as we know it was never used in anger and the Germans occupied it as a hospital in WWI. It was later blown up and forgotten about until being rediscovered after WWII. The local village adopted it and have painstakingly restored a large part of it and opened it to the public. It was a fascinating place to visit and to visualise how such immense fortifications were manned and organised. One of the best we have seen. Another two days in the Aisne, then we meet the Oise, then into the Seine again and back to Paris...