14-Oct-2020 -- A few days vacation during the Covid 19 pandemic ! As the travel limitations got more and more restrictive we ended up with our only option left : a road trip in our home country. So we decided to head north with the goal of visiting the Loire valley and the famous castles stringed all along the river. Traveling with our car also gave us the opportunity to visit a number of CPs lying along our itinerary.

N47 E4 is located in a forest ; there currently many ways to approach the point following the numerous forest tracks and lumberjacks. We parked our car at Le Chatelet 1755 meters North West of the point and hiked to the point (overall round trip 4300 meters). We walked on a forest track running East – South – East until we crossed the 4th East meridian north of the actual point. We then hiked due south downhill through the forest until we reach the CP after 170 meters. That last part was somewhat uneasy as the forest has been cut recently and the progression was made on muddy ground with lumbers and branches all over the place. The confluence danse was nevertheless quick and easy and the return trip offered us some very nice « fall View » of Le Chatelet.

The main interest point in the area is undoubtely the very nice town of Autun (24 km ESE (100°) beeline from the CP. This town has been built by the Roman Emperor Augustus (27BC – 14AD) as a sister town to Rome itself. The town is still framed by a 6 km long roman fortified wall and contains numerous artifact of roman times :

* The Janus temple is the more mysterious. It can be found in the southern part of the town. This big tower is in a meadow but the whole area has been searched a few years ago and the tower is in fact in an urban roman area much like the city of Pompei in southern Italy. The date of construction of the Janus Temple is unknown and historians are not even sure that this building was for religious purposes.

* The most spectacular to us is the roman theater. This huge building could hold 20.000 people and was, at the time it was constructed, the second largest theater in the roman empire after Rome. The building was as high as the tree top currently circling the place.