Via Francigena

I had breakfast with Anic Urier, who had also invited me to dinner last night. I explained to her what a Camino Angel is, so she was pleased. I had arrived in Trefcon not knowing there was no food. My gîte was weird, too. The shower only had scalding water and the toilet didn’t flush. If I had known that I would have spent the night at Anic’s house, which was literally a 20 second walk from the gîte.

Today’s walk went well……until my phone almost died after only three hours and the charger didn’t work ( I thought I charged it all night but maybe it wasn’t plugged in all the way?). I was pretty unnerved since I needed the GPS to find Saint-Quentin as well as the name and address of my hotel. At 3% I found my first bar and plugged it in. Very nice…..except for the drunk lady who kept stroking my raincoat and hat. 🤨 It was only 12:30! Sheesh!

The walk included a few small woods but mostly it ran along farmland. Wheat, colza and newly planted beets.

Lots of cemeteries. This region was devastated by WWI and WWII. The towns were pretty much razed by the fighting and rebuilt afterwards, so most everything is less than 100 years old. Red brick everywhere.

The French war dead are grouped together in big cemeteries. The English, Germans, Canadians, Australians, etc., are in their own cemeteries where the battle took place. Each country takes care of its own cemetery, usually through local associations. I was told there is a lot of WWI tourism, as people want to see where Great-Grandpa fought and was buried. A lot of that, which explains all the tour pamphlets I see everywhere.

The countryside is beautiful. Some of the villages are nice but the towns make tge countryside look even better.

No sighseeing because I need to rest my legs for tomorrow and because it’s RAINING.Read more