This was out last day cycling the chemin St Jacques and it was appropriate that our last stop was at Ligugé, the oldest monastery in the West. Southwest of Poitiers, founded by St Martin in the fourth century, and with, apart from two periods of anticlericalism, a continuous history of 1,600 years.

I cycled through the woods from the old Catenian monastery of Fontaine le Compe, past the old monastic fish ponds and there in the valley below me in the midst of the small farm were the sheep and cows of the monastery. We were just too late for vespers but when I got into the monastery church, there were still some monks and people praying quietly. Perhaps I have thought in the past that an atmosphere of prayer was caused by beautiful music or liturgy but here now there was just silence.

But it was as if the air was heavy with prayer, one could hardly move through it. I sat down, thought quietly, and went to sleep.

Later in Châtellerault, I was surprised that one of the churches, Eglise St Jacques, was still open at near eleven at night. I went in. At the back is a beautiful wooden statue of a Compostela pilgrim complete with shells on his hat.

It was nearly dark inside, the great stone vaults reaching up into the murk and my thoughts and prayers seemed to rise with them into something inconsequential above my head, something vague, undefined, but almost heavenly.