It's our last full day in Guernsey, and we spent it out in nature walking along the southwest coast path from iCart corner to Petite Bot Bay and back. As with many coastal walks, the path goes up and down, with uneven footing, but great views. I took a wrong turn and we went down to a bay where a 30 ft ladder joins the path down to the rocks near the beach. We did not go down the ladder, the many steps down the steep path was enough so we watched the young family that were running around the secluded beach.
After our coastal walk, we returned to St Peter Port and went to see the Victor Hugo house, he was an eccentric to say the least.
She said:
Today we walked part of the Coast Path around Guernsey, from Icart to Petit Bot Bay.
As expected, spectacular scenery. Also as expected, lots of up and down.
We came upon a plaque dedicated to the Commandos who, on July 8, 1940, snuck by submarine into Petit Bot Bay and scaled the cliffs to recon the number of Germans on Guernsey.
No small feat.
The cliffs are almost sheer.
A beautiful day for a walk. A woman from the Guernsey Press newspaper saw us taking selfies and she stopped to chat. She wants us to send her one of our shots for the paper. We’ll be famous!
A walk on country lanes back to the bus stop, then back into town for a completely different experience: a tour of Victor Hugo’s house.
First off, I think Victor Hugo might have been nuts, if his home decor is any indication.
The first floor is all dark, carved wood paneling and furniture. Big and intricate and gaudy. He bought old chairs wherever he could find them, had them taken apart, and had them reworked into mantles and tables and secret doors and benches and altar-like walls.
Even though he was not religious, his house is chock full of religious statues and allegories and sayings and bible quotes.
The house is also full of every kind of Chinese decoration, as that was the rage at the time - Orientalism. Vases and framed prints and wall hangings and figurines.
Then there is the Tapestry Room with tapestries everywhere except the floor - yes, on the ceilings, too.
The Dining Room is completely (and I do mean completely) lined and covered with Dutch tiles.
VH everywhere in the house - his initials.
He wanted to be unequivocally tied to the house.
As we ascended, floor by floor, the rooms become lighter and lighter - man ascending from darkness into the light.
He had a specific, intricately inlaid table that he used for Seances. He loved to do Seances and claimed to have talked to Shakespeare during one of them.
The whole house is a symbol of man and good and life and death and who knows what all.
Like I said, I think he was nuts.
He wrote standing up at a desk in his solarium, on the top floor. Sometimes, naked.
Supposedly, he was an insomniac, but he still had two bedrooms, one that he only slept in a couple of times and the other at the top of the house.
From that bedroom, he had a view of his mistress’s house a street away.
When he rose in the morning, he would hang a white linen cloth out his window so that she would know he was awake.
Then he would proceed with his toilette, naked, by the window, for her (and the neighbors) to see.
His wife left him.
Anyway, a really, really interesting tour.
Tomorrow, we go to Sark. Another adventure begins.
Total Mileage:
7.2 miles
More impressive, though, is the equivalent number of floors climbed:
55!
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