Walking in the footsteps of Rimbaud

“How could he have returned here time and time again, to rejoin family figures so stubbornly?” (Julien Gracq)

The peaceful countryside around Roche was above all a place of inspiration for Rimbaud. Let us follow in the poet’s footsteps, walking along these paths beneath a blue sky. Quiet countryside, where the pace is set by the work of the soil, as the seasons pass. But it was too quiet for Arthur. He tried to flee, avoiding manual work so as not to take root. His escape, his freedom, was to write.

A waymarked road runs through the countryside around Roche, passing where the poet ‘with soles of wind’ once trod these paths. The seven-kilometre route, enhanced by five sculptures representing his poem ‘Vowels’, goes past Vonq station, Méry chapel and the wash house.