We have made a mad dash to Piedmont across the long agricultural lowlands of central France, across the Somme, past the great silhouette of Laon Cathedral seen in the distance from the road, past Rheims, Beaune and Cluny, all places associated with the pilgrimage roads, and then East to the Alps.   We’ve followed the route of a journey I first undertook with two schoolfriends in 1971 in an Austin A30, a version of the grand tour.   They got annoyed with me because I wanted to go to Autun and Vezelay and they wanted to get drunk.