Les Écorcelles

Actually, we’re a bit beyond Brécy, but will come to that later! The day started with a lovely breakfast - the usual croissants, coffee etc, but also a pot each of home made yum yogurt and a loaf of brioche warm from the oven.. We were driven back to Couy to start walking from where we had left off. Luckily we had studied our notes and realised that Couy to Brécy was 20 kms, not the 15 mentioned in the itinerary, so that was not an unexpected nasty surprise!

We started off in the usual beautiful cool morning at about 9 - at exactly 9 actually, because the 9 o’clock church bells rang just then! We went through the pretty farmland, but still the vast expanses of grain crops (we discovered sorghum) not many cows and no vineyards. By about 11 it started getting hot, but we made easy time and we’re at Villabon, the half way mark by about midday - stopped for coffee/chocolate, Amr found a supermarket to buy fizzy water and cheese for tomorrow and all good. We found a shady park to sit under a tree and eat the baguette and cheese that Monique, yesterday’s hostess had given us, and also sweet tomatoes out of her garden.

Started the hot afternoon, a stretch beside a country road, not busy, but had to walk on the uneven grassy edge when cars came, then blissfully diverted into the forest and had several kilometres of shady beautiful walking through tall trees. Then back to the road and the last few kms into Brécy. This vast countryside is so like the meseta as I said before….and it is also very flat, can’t complain at all about trudging uphill, just flat and very straight roads or paths.

So we arrived at Brécy at almost exactly 21kms, and felt good, we had arrived. Walking past the Mairie lots of decorated cars and we could see that a wedding was on - Saturday afternoon. But we couldn’t find an open bar for a beer before we found our accommodation. So we consulted the map to show where we had to go, and the D12 was highlighted for an inch or so…so we turned up the D12 which was the road we had been following quite a lot of the day, and expected our BandB would appear soon, but no…after getting confirmation from 2 different people, we finally found it 4 kms from Brécy!

But the good parts are a) we made it without feeling bad walking-wise - added up to 26 kms total, and b) we are at another divine, though completely different, guest house, with another characterful old lady, who expected and welcomed us, and had been expecting us to call from Brécy for a lift! (She will give us a lift in the morning!)…we had a beer, and a shower, and dinner will be in 20 mins and can smell delicious smells. There is also a Dutchman, travelling round on motorcycle, here for dinner, and also a family out till midnight at a family festivity.

This is an old (16C) house, beautiful thick stone walls keeping it cool, charming in lovely garden. We converse totally in French and get most of it…except with the Dutchman..(we thought he was a Pom till he told us) who knew that some crazy Aussies were expected. Another colourful day!Read more