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Wed Sept 24. Tournehem. 18.9 km.

 Another good walking day - no rain, but windy and cool enough to need a light jacket most of the day.  Yesterday’s woodland paths were replaced with quiet country roads. Here is the first outhouse I have seen in my hundreds of kilometres walking on the Via Francigena!  Actually, an ecologically minded group sponsored this rest area  because several long-distance walking trails crisscross at this point.


In my experience, most shops and bars close on Mondays in France. Not here -Wednesday is the day.  So I ended up with only my granola bars and water for breakfast and lunch.  There are vending machines now in the villages - I passed one for foods to heat, one for pizzas, and one beside a large farm proposing strawberries. But this is where I desperately need a walking partner. Not only can I not figure out induction stoves in the Airbnbs, and only about a quarter of tvs, now I can’t figure out vending machines.  How pathetic is that…



Passed a small roadside chapel built in 1886 in thanks to the Virgin Mary for a miraculous cure, and now maintained by the state, then on top of a hill with gorgeous views all around a chapel built in the fifteenth century that doesn’t ever seem to have been finished, and at my destination a somewhat sad seventeenth century church where mass is said about once a month by a visiting curé.  In England the Anglican Church is struggling, in France the Catholic Church has pretty well had it.


Local colour is preserved in housing in France due to strict regional building codes.  Today I noticed the start of curved roofs - very common in Normandy and exported with early settlers to Quebec.  


And an obviously prosperous farm.


I arrived too early at my destination and had two hours to fill before I could get my room. As I said yesterday, there is nothing much at all happening in these small places. The one café here was closed, as was a little grocery store (Wednesday), and the bakery had completely shut down a long time ago.  No benches with old gentlemen hanging out like in Italy! No one strolling about - just empty. Sad.

And then extreme good fortune - I’m staying at a small hotel and the restaurant was open! Roast lamb with frites and cheese for dessert. Life ain’t bad after all.





Comments

  1. TimKellySeptember 26, 2025 at 10:07 AM

    Had a great deal of difficulty figuring out a gas pump in Sardinia to put fuel in my rental car. There was no one working there, just cards and cryptic hard to read display on pump. Fortunately a kind customer gave me a hand. Thanks... still following your journey!

    ReplyDelete

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