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17.06.08 Tuesday
Descartes (La Haye) to Le Grand Presigny.
We are now leaving Descartes, but a quick further word about this town, it was originally La Haye and claims to have been an important point on the route to Compostella ?from Paris, it has a very old church and remains of a pilgrim hostel. After the birth of its famous son it has gradually changed its name to Descartes, (50 years ago being La Haye-Descates).This seems to be a bit of a metaphor for the change in outlook from religious to secular agnostic that has occurred in europe over the same time period.
We are heading generally southeast towards Limoges up the valleys of three rivers, the Vienne to the west, the Creuse in the middle and the Claise, the most easterly and smallest, that joins the Creuse at Descartes. The ridges between these are only a couple of hundred feet above river level and the route hops over them happily in very largely arable farmland with at one point both cornflowers and poppies growing in the corn, agriculture less intense round here.
A short day as la Roche Posay is a bit far at 25 miles. About 10 miles done today, mostly off road forest and farm tracks. We are on a section of electronic map without detailed GR tracks marked, so followed some very good waymarks until they seemed to be going the wrong way, so backtracked and were about to try another forest track when strongly advised against by an elderly French couple sitting in a car in the middle of nowhere, ?owners of the forest, who knows? So continue following waymarks. Eventally end up here (Le Grand Presigny) on the Claise, which has a good campsite and an impressive (closed) chateau museum and is just as good in terms of southern progress and where we go next. Settled into campsite, looked nearly closed as usual, and noticed a swarm of bees settling into a near by tree. Once settled, us and bees, took a photo and set out to tell some one. Found the gendarmerie they seem moderately interested and maybe have contacted someone who will come and collect them.