Département de la Marne

The forecast for today was fog, and it remained hazy and overcast all day - though surprisingly warm. I rejoined the Path at Outlines, which meant I missed a stage of the VF, but I'll have to live with that - no accommodation means I can't do the walking. Not far from Outlines, I got off track reasonably badly. I was encouraged in my error by way markers that indicated I was on the right path! I didn't twig when the way markers told me to go left when I'd expected a right hand turn (I've been wrong on that score before) but I did twig when I saw, in the distance, the Spanish man doing the Saint-Jacques Compostelle, whose end point today was completely different from mine! I back tracked, closely following the VF app, and was not surprised that I'd missed the turn. The 'track' was just an impression of one filled with waist high grass! I heard rustling as I made my way down it, but you don't feel the same trepidation as you do in the long grass in Australia; anything that bites you here isn't likely to kill you. At the bottom, the grass now at chest height, I had a frog pond on my left, a creek straight ahead, and my VF app telling me to take an invisible path to the right! I forged on and came across a beaten down track, obviously made by other pilgrims in the same boat. Eventually, the grass now at head height, I found an 'official' VF way marker with the path much clearer ahead. It just shows you how important local land owner support for the VF can be as I came across another section of the path, later on, which had been nicely mown. Anyway, I made it to Villeret safe and sound, and to my delight, I am sleeping in a teenie, tiny house tonight - my very first. My hosts will be delivering my evening meal and breakfast for tomorrow shortly: heaven! As you can see, I visited a lot of what they call 1/2 timbered churches today - all historical monuments.Les mer