I left my AirBnB early. I rather hoped to sneak away. My host was very fastidious about cleanliness, and of the two guests in the place overnight, I wanted to be first in the bathroom, so that if I inadvertently left any hairs in the bath, or water around the sink, I might not be blamed for it. (I had the previous evening been given fulsome and detailed instructions regarding bathroom hygiene and general tidiness!).

With the keys dropped through the letterbox at 7.30am, I strode out into the streets of Reims. My first task was to secure breakfast – the most important meal of the day, as we all know – and find somewhere not to chilly to sit and eat it. In this regard, everyone I have spoken to has complained about how cold it is at the moment. A flashing pharmacy sign told me it was 3 degrees C. I have found the temperature most useful: I have not overheated on my walks, and when people complain how cold it is, I can engender almost immediate bonhomie, knowing smiles and ententes most cordiale by remarking that I’m English and we’re used to the cold.

Today as going to be a long walk owing to the paucity of cheap (or even reasonably cheap) accommodation through the champagne vineyards. I therefore felt no compunction what all in ordering two pain au raisins, a coffee, and a baguette and a cheeky tarte citron for lunch.

I walked a little way on down the rue Gambetta and sat to break my night’s fast in a little park behind the Basilica of Saint Rémi. This wonderful Romanesque church looked resplendent in the golden morning sun, and I reproached myself for not exploring it when I had the opportunity the previous day. It looked far more appealing than the overdone Gothic fussiness of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame up the road.

Saint Rémi, or Remigius as he was known to his friends, baptised the Frankish King Clovis in 496, thus continuing Christian influence here in the post-Roman power vacuum and also permanently linking Reims with diving right of kings in the catholic monarchy. Every French king worth their salt was anointed in this city and this wonderful basilica held the shrine of St Rémi who kicked it all off.

Finishing my second pastry, I readied myself for the Via Francigena, which would take me around the basilica – so at least I would get a good look at the outside.

As I passed the south door, which is the main entrance to the building, I noticed that it was open from 8am in the morning. And as providence would have it, it was now 8am. I was very definitely most glad to be told I could enter this house of the Lord. Especially to discover that I had the place to myself, that it was warm and that for a mere 2 euros I could turn all the lights on… for ten minutes!!

I know, I really should get a life, but as this is the only one I’ve got, here is a small gallery of pictures.

So I urge you, if someone says “Go to Reims: see the cathedral”, I say “forget the cathedral, see the basilica.” As if there is any further proof needed, a very friendly chap came over and asked me if I was a pilgrim and whether I wanted a stamp. Something I accepted with alacrity.

Around the cathedral there are a number of saints and altars where candles were burning. I spotted a figure of St Christopher, with walking staff, bearing the infant Christ on his shoulder. As a pilgrim, this motif appeared to me: I am certainly trying to bear the image of Jesus Christ onto my travels, even if, as Christopher found, this is difficult at times. I offered a candle and prayed for my journey. It was only later I realised how prescient this act was.

With a spring in my step, I began my long journey of the day. I walked through the Saint Rémi quarter. I learned that this area had previously been inhabited by potters and their various workshops and kilns. The area had become “disreputable” as an information board told me, and was comprehensively redeveloped in the 1950s and 1960s. This made me like the basilica even more, it served a tough area, rather than the posh end of town round the cathedral. The “comprehensive redevelopment” had resulted in a strange Swiss chalet like design, which even 48 hours later, I can’t decide what I think about it.

Beyond this transplanted Alpine high street, I once again communed with the Canal de l’Aisne à la Marne for about 5 miles. Early morning joggers abounded, gabbling a sweaty “bonjour” as they passed.

Several folk were clearing doing shuttle runs along the first stretch and I saw them several times as I chugged along at 5kmph. As the leafy suburban stretches gave over for more industrial outskirts, the joggers thinned out to be replaced by cyclists and e-scooters whizzing past.

Lock and large scale urban murals broke the tedium, but it was not long before I began listening to a wonderful dramatisation of PG Wodehouse’s “Joy in the Morning” featuring Richard Briers as Wooster and Sir Michael Hordern as Jeeves. I don’t usually start listening to something quite as early as this, but canal walking can drive a chap a little potty.

This reverie was to be broken at Sillery, where the Via darted south into proper posh champagne country.

After a canal basin, the route followed a busy road out of the village, over the A4 motorway and then over the TGV line. Frustratingly several high speed trains hurtled past, but, by definition, were so quick that by the time I had got the camera out, they had gone.

I did manage to take this one a little later. And as the foreground of this picture suggests, I was now among the pinot noir vines that produce some of the most expensive champagnes France has to offer. Famous names appeared on posts as I walked through the vineyards – Mailly, Moët & Chandon, G H Mumm to mention a few. Of course at the moment only the first leaves are starting to appear on the vines, there aren’t any grapes yet, but strange to think that in subsequent years people will be wetting baby’s heads, saluting brides and grooms and even naming ships with the produce of these plants.

I was aiming for the windmill outside Verzenay. I imagined a French Windy Miller pottering about the place. One of my favourite episodes of Camberwick Green involved Windy, and the sage advice that if you wanted to ask him anything, you’d better do so in the morning as he often got on the cider over lunch and slept it off over the afternoon. Imagine Monsieur Venty Miller with all this champagne around!

It turns out that up until 1902 this mill had been in the hands of one family, but in that year they decided to sell out. A popular landmark, there was a lot of interest, and the enterprising miller secured 9,000 gold francs for the property – 1000 francs for each of his children. It took so long to arrange the legal paperwork, that the fecund miller and his wife produced another child, and another 1000 francs was demanded and paid by the buyer.

During the First World War, the site was used by many visiting heads of state to observe the German frontline and today it is owned by G H Munn who entertain rich clients here. What would dear old Windy think!?

Happily, the path now disappeared into woodland. And “hello” I said to myself, “if I am not very much mistaken, this is an old railway line.” The guidebook didn’t say so of course, but there’s no fooling me. I know a cutting and an embankment when I see one.

I love walking on railway lines – they often seem to snake through woodland hear and operate on gentle gradients. The path was now some considerable height above the floor of the Marne valley, so this line must have done some judicious weaving to reach this height.

I was feeling particularly smug when we came out into the top of Verzenay and I came across the old station building, now a private house. The official route now dropped down into the village itself and went past the champagne museum and visitor centre at the Phare de Verzenay. This lighthouse, was not built as an aid to shipping (even the thirstiest ship’s captain would have struggled to pilot a vessel this far inland!) but very definitely for tourist purposes. Tempted though I was to get a stamp, I didn’t fancy walking down, only to walk back up again, and I was going to have to do a lot more walking to get to Condé by 6pm.

I decided to stay on the friendly railway line, which continued on its gentle way though the woodland. I noted the next former railway station at Verzy, although this time by architecture alone. This would make a wonderful tourist steam line, I thought. Chuffing through these champagne villages, with spectacular views and the chance to stop off and imbibe a few glasses. Perhaps I shall write to the regional tourist office!

It was 1.45pm and very definitely time for lunch. I had a baguette and some cheese and, as it was St George’s Day, something that all true born Englishmen and women either love or hate to go with it.

I usually carry one of these little heart-shaped tubs of joy in my bath bag in case I am weekending somewhere and my host isn’t properly equipped in the breakfast department.

I ate and watched the world go by, a number of vineyard workers, or perhaps viticulturalists as perhaps they prefer to be called were heading back to the fields after lunch. I love the vineyard tractors with their high wheels and space for the vines underneath the working parts of the tractors. Here’s one I spotted later, for all the tractor spotters out there.

As I prepared to move on at 2.15pm, my mind turned to events happening at home. At that time, Rosie was taking a funeral of a dearly loved woman at home. Ali had run the nursery at Bodenham School for 15 years and had died recently after a short illness that she had borne with great courage and strength of character. Ali was wonderful with children; she had that gift of engaging with them at their level, entering into their imaginative worlds and encouraging gifts through thoughtful play. Our younger boy loved Ali, so much so that when he left nursery and started in reception class he would, almost every day, want to speak to Ali to tell her about his day and what was happening in “his world.” The last time I had spoken to Ali, she expressed such deep gratitude for all the good things in her life and the opportunity she had had to make a difference in the lives of the children in her care. Most wisely she had said that many children would have been ok wherever they had started out, but there were some for whom she knew she had made a real difference.

And as I walked through the woodland, listening to nothing but the birdsong, I reflected that this practical love of Ali’s is very much like the practical love of God. If we’re honest, most of us will probably be “ok”; we will have our ups and downs, our challenges to face, but on the whole we’ll be ok… we’ll find our way through. But God longs to reach out to the edges of society, to the forgotten, the sick, to the discriminated against. He loves us all, but he comes to comfort the troubled (and to trouble the comfortable!). The bible passage that was being used at the funeral was that passage where Jesus rebukes the disciples for keeping children away from him:

Jesus said “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19.14).

Children were another marginalised section of society at the time of Jesus. Also the idea that the kingdom of heaven belongs to those with fertile imaginations, childlike joy and wonder, is something that Ali embodied deep in the core of her being. It is a powerful idea.

I thought again of that figure of St Christopher, bearing the infant Christ on his shoulder. If you look at this depiction, Christopher has rolled one shoulder forward to give prominence to the child on his shoulder. We can learn a lot from this disposition – of pointing away from ourselves, and towards what is most blessed and hopeful in the world. We might point explicitly point to Christ, or we might point to a hopeful, more just future – a future embodied by the imagination and uncynical disposition of children.

As I walked on, out of the woodland and into more sunlit vineyards, I prayed for Ali, I prayed for her family and I prayed for Rosie taking the funeral. I prayed too, that I might be a better Christopher in the world.

The remainder of the journey was long, and undertaken off the Via along busy departmental through Trépail and Ambonnay. Both packed with different champagne houses, but my tired feet were beginning to slow me down.

I reached Condé-sur-Marne at 6.20pm, after clocking up some 50,000 steps, or almost 24 miles. I was dead beat and knocked on the door of my accommodation. To my delight I was met by the redoubtable figure of Denis Wolter at La Clé du Champs. “There are more pilgrims here!” He announced and then rushed off to find me a cold beer.

I met with Pierre and Ann-Laura, more Swiss pilgrims, who were walking from Reims for two weeks. I drank my beer (for which I had never been more grateful) and listened to their tales. Life was good, even if my feet didn’t always agree and as I sat, I received feedback from my AirBnB host in Reims:

”Paul left the room spotless… I would recommend him.”