536 – A medieval walled village

Card no 536 - Maylis et Jean-Pierre 

The village of Vence, France

Country Card Sent From: France 

Place that Card Sender Lives: Nice 

Date Received: 4th May 2013 

Distance Travelled: 805 miles 

Time Taken: 4 days 

Postcrossing id – FR-282890  

The medieval walled village of Vence is set in the hills of the Alpes Maritimes department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in south-eastern France between Nice and Antibes. Vence is famous for its spring water, which can be collected from numerous fountains in the town.

The stamps shows the church at Aulnay, a busy little town famous for this 12th Century church on the pilgrimage route to the shrine of St James of Compostela. There is a delightful market in the town square on Sunday and Thursday mornings.

In medieval times, the Via Turonensis (Way of Tours) was the most westerly of the four traditional pilgrim routes. It was a fairly movable feast, with several strands running roughly parallel in a southerly direction. It catered for pilgrims from the Low Countries, Paris and Britain, and converged with two of the others at Saint-Palais in the Pyrénées, before crossing into Spain for the final push to Compostella.