Laon 18 miles

Not sure what glamping is but I suspect it isn’t spending a wet night in a wee tent, waking in the morning to find a veritable army of ants over everything. Got packed up and left asap. Everything is now either wet or damp except for my passport, credential and credit cards. Surprising how much heavier a sodden tent is than a dry one. Couldn’t face going back into town for food so just plodded on. Came to a small town and found a boulangerie. Bought a panini, juice and chocolate eclair, sat on the pavement under an awning to keep the rain off and stuffed my face. Felt so much better.

The well-dressed pilgrim has discovered the joys of wearing a Tilley hat. It keeps the rain off the napper better.

It was now decision time. The Via is about 100 miles longer than 10 years ago and I think it is because they have reduced the amount of walking on roads and used more paths meandering about the countryside. Today was a perfect example. The route spent most of the day in forest, which would of course be wet and probably muddy or I could take the road which went pretty much dead straight. A complication was that I would have to commit to the road, if that was my choice, some time before I came to the actual road and only then would I know how busy it was going to be. The road was about 3 miles shorter. Went for it.

Not a happy experience. My feet were grateful but it wasn’t in any way enjoyable. Whole day spent with dirty great lorries passing close by, walking just beside or on the road depending on what was coming and what was the state of the ground just beside the road. The straight road meant both myself and the driver had plenty of warning that we both wanted to use the same bit of road. The nearest I came to being smeared was when I nipped back on the road because there wasn’t anything coming for a while but a car behind me decided to use the gap in traffic to overtake. He didn’t miss me by very much and I got a hell of a fright.

Could see Laon cathedral from a long way off thanks to it being stuck on a hill. Impressive building and I can’t get my head around the fact that buildings of that size were being built in the 12th century.

Nice big room tonight and I have strewn my stuff round in the hope that some of it dries out by the morning.Read more