Day 32: Stage 27: Pont- Saint-Martin, 17 kms, sunny, 26°

Lords Of Bard!

This is the front of my little apartment, with my hosts living in the house on the right and the apartment in the smaller building on the left. It was a nice place where I could do some cooking and give my still sore toes a bit of a break. 

It promised to be a warm day, and it was.

I stayed on the right bank of the river and walked for about 3 km until I met up with the Via Francigena.

This garden is for my friend Louise who loves all things with sunshine, warmth and flowers. There are more flowers coming up with you in mind.

The road I walked along was peaceful and quiet with just an occasional car zipping past. There were interesting little country homes complete with gardens that I enjoyed.

Arriving at the bridge where are the VF joined up with my road I met a very nice woman from Tel Aviv, Israel. I missed her name, and for that I sincerely apologize ( we did discuss this possibility). You have this blog address, and should you check in please put your name in the comment section, just in case our paths don’t cross for a while. 

We took each other‘s picture on the bridge and then we walked together most of the day. It was great to have company, and my new friend revealed a good sense of humour and a nice way with the people we met along the way. There were many intersections. 



Of course by now I am really enjoying the massive irrigation systems.

This was an interesting flowering bush that neither of us had seen before.

We stopped often to chat with local people, half the fun. This fellow is harvesting his zucchini field, and my new friend asked for samples which she promptly shared with me. So nice because I didn’t have the ability to grow zucchini this year with my plan to be away much of the summer.

As we continued along Bard Fortress located high on a rock outcrop began to show itself. As I left my little apartment this morning the one special thing I wanted to see today was Bard Fortress. 

We arrived at this large Romanesque church, quite plain on the outside. But you know what they say about a book and it’s cover. 



There were two fellows with a large Great Dane puppy just nine months old. He was a hoot, and one of the two fellows spoke a little English and with both of us speaking a little French and my limited Italian we were able to converse quite nicely. My new friend clearly loves dogs and at some point I wondered if we’d ever make it to our destination as she stopped at every dog sighting (just kidding)! Though there was a service in the church the fellows told us it would be OK to go up and have a look as long as we were quiet. 

We very quietly popped our heads in the open door and afterwords both commented on what a beautiful church it was. Note that the floor is mostly glass so you can see the excavations that were made under the church from a much earlier time. Relics have been located in this area from the Ice Age and Bronze Age. The Romans were here and controlling the pass in the sixth century. I suspect that the excavations under the church were from Roman times.

Shortly before arriving at the fortress we stopped for a little break with some refreshment. Again there was more opportunity to interact with the owner in the bar, and we conversed largely in French. He explained to me that most people on the region of Aosta also speak French much of the time. I’ve found this to be the case and I was aware of this before leaving home. As poor as my French is it’s more fluent than my Italian. I hope to rectify this situation in the coming weeks!

I was quite surprised to see that the main rail line runs right under the fortress!

Crossing over to the mediaeval village that leads up to the fortress. The whole area was lightly touristed and on a Sunday morning it was lots of fun!

Bard Fortress is located at a key choke point in the lower Aosta Valley in part allowing the fortress garrison to collect tolls from travellers and merchants. In 1800 I read that it took Napoleon‘s 40,000 soldiers about two weeks to capture the fortress and remove the Austrian soldiers who were defending it. The fortress was later used as a prison, but thankfully it’s now a museum.

There was a market in the old town with all sorts of locally produced produce. We had lots of fun trying samples!



This fellow, a local producer of honey, was particularly interesting. Myself being a very minor connoisseur of honey, I found the whole conversation lots of fun. Again using a mixture of languages he explained something about each of his different types of honey. He explained about the level of natural sugars and how these impacted the crystallization of the honey. No samples here! I told him that if I could that I would’ve taken a small jar. Annemarie can attest to that!

There were, however, cheese samples here!







We finally ventured up to the fortress, but there was no climbing by foot for these two today!

I’ve just taken a break from writing the blog. It’s Sunday and as usual almost everything is closed. I had planned to order a pizza, but when I went to the pizza place Google had got it wrong, Closed until tomorrow. I hurried back down to the supermarket and found that it was still open. It’s a large supermarket so I bought pasta salad and chicken wings from their deli section. Being a little concerned about eating this sort of food I called Annemarie in Holland and she told me as long as it was cold it should all be fine. It is cold so time out! With dinner I’m watching the live written feed from Manchester where United are hosting Arsenal who have not yet lost this year. It appears that United have just scored and lead 3 to 1!

I purchased too much food and with yoghurt for dessert I couldn’t finish. While I don’t like to waste food, I’ve got all the nutrition that I need for tonight. I purchased some bananas and bread and cheese for breakfast tomorrow morning. All good on that front. 

Back to today. After a quick tour of the fortress we walked down  this winding road to the old town.

Then headed off in this direction continuing down the valley. We will be more or less out of the valley sometime tomorrow.

There were grape vines trellisses above us. I had previously seen this older style of trellising in Sicily when we walked across the island in 2018. It’s very attractive, but for today’s methods of harvesting not very efficient. I don’t really care about the harvesting element, it’s very pleasing on the eye, right?

In our day filled with highlights for such a short stage, the next was the original Roman road and archway built through solid rock.

Then began the long slog into town as the air became increasingly warmer.

My new friend and I parted ways on the edge of town. She to find the ostello, me to find my room in a private home. It had been a nice break from all the solo walking. There aren’t a whole lot of other pilgrims on this route. Though at my accommodation tonight I bumped into a couple from northern France very close to the Belgium border and who I had seen previously at the top of the pass. We had a nice chat as I was returning with my dinner and they were on their way out to the grocery store to find their own. I find it continuously interesting how all our paths continue to cross.

Seemingly the whole purpose of this town is to support tourism with the heart of that purpose a Roman bridge. Having seen many Roman bridges over the years, I thought this one was not too bad, perhaps a 7.5-8 out of 10, lol! Given that it’s been standing for almost 2000 years the rating should probably be higher. Amazing architectural design and construction. It’s difficult to not love Roman bridges. I’m a big fan!



Tomorrow the stages begin to lengthen as I move into the foothills of the Alps. The Swiss and Italian Alps have been everything I’d hoped for. Tough, but unbelievably beautiful. It makes one feel insignificant walking alone through the giant peaks. An amazing experience that I feel grateful to have enjoyed.

I’m still having a few challenges with my big toes, so I’m going to wrap it a little in the morning and change my socks to a new pair with more cushion. I’m hoping this will help resolve whatever is going on, but I expect that at some point in the not too distant future I’ll begin to lose one or both big toenails. Oh joy, a new experience😑 I guess there’s another way of looking at this. Since retiring about 8 years ago I’ve walked some 10,000 km along numerous roads, across many different countries and over many different terrains and this is the first time that I’ve had a toe issue. I guess I was due!