Eva on the Via Francigena (and beyond)

Song of the Day: My Maria — B.W. Stevenson

I woke up with this song stuck in my head even before I had set off, but it suited the long, empty farm roads through rolling fields well. I even sang along (perhaps a generous use of the word “sing”) on my way out of Tournehem-sur-la-Hem…

Today started with the snooze button — I blame the very comfortable bed at the Longhouse, or perhaps the half-glass of Cahors I had with dinner the night before. I’m still new at this pilgrim thing, so it takes me almost exactly an hour from wake-up to walking out the door. Not wanting to get too late of a start, I rolled out of bed at 6:50 and began my morning routine: stretch, change, brush teeth, sunscreen, blister care, pack, breakfast…

Breakfast was a few pieces of buttered toast, some yogurt, and a glass of orange juice. There was a stinky French cheese waiting for me in the fridge, which normally I would be excited for, but at 7:30 am I couldn’t bear the thought. I grabbed an apple and another slide of bread for the road, and set off toward my first destination of the day: Tournehem-sun-la-Hem. Which, by the way, is pronounced “Tour-nom,” a classic example of the inexplicable spelling of the French language.

The morning was nice — I walked under a massive sky with light cloud cover, a relatively flat track through golden fields of grain. At one point I heard a loud whooshing sound and looked up to see if a plane was passing overheard — but no, it was a high-speed train flying by, en route to somewhere much further than Tournehem. I passed a few walkers (still have not met a single other pilgrim), and rejoined the official VF route in a town called Yeuse, where I sat for a bit and had my apple from breakfast.

After passing through Yeuse I was back onto the farm tracks, but these ones stretching uphill. Cresting the hill (technically the French call it a “mont” despite its size) I had a wonderful view over the towns below, and over to the ruins of the former chapel of Saint-Louis. From there I descended into the hamlet of Guemy, where I passed a gaggle of middle-aged motorcyclists and one very watchful cow. At this point I had been walking on the road for almost an hour, and was starting to drag. My feet, which hadn’t been bothering me much at the start of the day, were making themselves known. And despite the fact that it was not yet 10:30, I was hungry for lunch. I knew that Tournehem had a cafe, and prayed that it would be open, despite this being a Tuesday in August.

Tournehem is set up on a hill, with what looks like a nice church up near the highest point — though I didn’t venture in that direction. However, just as you enter, there is a lovely square with the Mairie (open!), the Cafe de Mairie (open!), a Pharmacy (also open!) and a Library (closed – you can’t win ‘em all). My first port of call was the Mairie where I received my stamp, and had another one-sided conversation about my pilgrimage, where I was from, and where I was going. I assumed the woman I was speaking to was asking me those questions, but I could have been responding to a question about the weather, for all I know. I really need to learn French.

I then walked into the Cafe de Mairie, where a man was standing behind the counter talking to two others. Immediately upon walking in I was greeted by a “Bonjour” from all 5 people in the cafe — I froze, sputtered for a few seconds, before coming up with (again, in broken French): “Sorry, I don’t speak French. Uhhh… to eat?” The men told me that I had to wait for the proprietor, who evidently was not the man behind the counter. A lovely older woman did eventually pop out, and we agreed on two ham and cheese sandwiches, one for here and one to go, as well as an Orangina. She gave me another stamp and asked me to write in her guest book, and I scarfed down my sandwich and Orangina — the perfect meal.

While resting at the cafe, I realized my feet were in pretty bad shape, and the duct tape strategy that had worked previously was not doing so hot. I limped over to the pharmacy to buy the Compeed blister bandages, patched myself up, and by 11:30 was heading out of town to Wisques. Like yesterday, I was combining two stages into one, meaning that I had another 3 and a half hours (excluding breaks) before arriving in Wisques.

The trip out of Tournehem was less interesting than the way in (likely a function of me veering from the official VF for a back-road route that shaved off 3 miles). It was a lot of up-and-down through small hamlets with plenty of barking dogs but, apparently, no people. The other difficulty with the back roads and villages is that it is hard to find a place to rest — I don’t want to sit down in someone’s yard, but I also don’t want to sit down on the side of the road, lest I be run over by one of the many speeding tractors that fly by. I finally found a patch of grass that could reasonably be assumed to be public property outside of Mentque, where I spread out my ground cloth and sat down to rest my feet. At this point, I was in a good amount of pain and still had 2.5 hours of walking left.

The next string of villages were not particularly memorable, a series of -hems as I presumably traced the path of the river of the same name. It was getting harder to walk due to the blisters — which I found annoying given that, for the most part, I otherwise felt fine, and because I’ve not once gotten a blister while hiking (even longer distances in the same boots). I stopped two or three more times to rest, holding back tears at times, watching the “minutes remaining” on Maps.Me slowly tick down. I called people, listened to podcasts, and counted my steps to take my mind off of my feet.

About 45 minutes from my ultimate destination, I rejoined the official VF — only after having to bushwhack through a field to avoid a massive tractor parked in the road, next to a farmer at work in his field. I don’t know what it’s called, but he was processing all the wheat he had cut and small pieces of grain poured out of a long tube into a waiting truck bed.

After another rather unremarkable stretch of road-walking (and more up-hills than I would have liked), I walked into the neo-Gothic (it was built in 1802) Abbey of Notre-Dame in Wisques. After a confusing interaction with the woman at the front desk there (I really need to learn French…) she walked me out of the Abbey and pointed down a small path. Confused, and praying that there would not be much more walking, I quickly came upon the house on the Abbey grounds used to host pilgrims and other guests. There I was greeted by Sister (Lucie?) (who, thankfully, spoke a bit of Italian), and through a combination of French-Italian-English she showed me the pilgrim room and the shower. The house is really charming, with ivy growing on the facade and a well-maintained garden.

At this point I decided to look up the stage I had planned for tomorrow, and my heart sank when I realized it was an 18-mile walk. The VF in France follows the path of the GR 145 trail, and as such makes some winding detours between towns that make it impossible to complete the whole thing in 90 days (the Schengen tourist visa limit). To address this, I had planned to combine stages in France where possible, and use Maps.Me to take shorter routes — as I had done yesterday, where I combined 3 stages into 1, and today where I had combined 2. Tomorrow I was supposed to combined Wisques-Therouanne and Therouanne-Amettes. But I was struggling to walk even in my hiking sandals around the pilgrim accommodation — there was no way I was making it all the way to Amettes the next day with my feet in this state. I could walk the 10 miles to Therouanne and do the walk in 2 stages, but I would need to make up the extra day somewhere else, and my feet would probably get worse in the meantime — there would not be another pharmacy for 3 days. After much deliberation, I decided the best thing would be to get to Arras, the next big city, and rest there to give my feet some time to heal, rather than risk making them worse. So, I decided that tomorrow I will walk to Saint-Omer (only 5 miles or so) and take the train from there to Arras for a rest day (or two), and potentially pick up a pair of walking sneakers or other socks. From Arras, I’ll continue as planned. I’m disappointed, of course, but feel this is the best course of action to make sure I don’t fully wreck my feet, and have the time I want to complete the other stages.

My new plan decided and previous bookings cancelled, I walked back to the Abbey for dinner with one of the nuns and the other guests. For the most part I spoke to one of the other guests, Virginie, who spoke English. She lived nearby and was staying in the Abbey for the first time, for 3 days. After a hearty dinner, she and I went to the French equivalent of evensong (Complies). It was a 15 minute service where you could hear, but not see, the nuns pray and sing. It was remarkable — during the prayer sections, which were purposefully (I think) discordant, you could feel the sound waves moving the air around you. And the harmonies of the hymns resonated beautifully in the space.

I can’t remember the last time I was surrounded by so many women — and only women. The fields I have worked in were “traditionally male-dominated,” as we would say, and I got used to being one of the few women in the room. When I wasn’t it was usually for “women’s events” which were sometimes nice and sometimes forced. Yet the abbey didn’t feel that way at all (at least for the brief time I was there). No one was focused on the fact that we were all women, there was no pressure to perform womanhood, and there was no implication that simply by virtue of being single-gender the abbey was empowering. We just existed. It was refreshing.

Pensive after Complies, I returned to the guesthouse for a cup of tea and bed. Tomorrow would be a short day, so I set a late alarm: 7am(!)

Final mileage: 16.53 mi
Walking time: 7h 51m
Elevation gain: 1,250ft

Accommodation: Abbaye Notre-Dame de Wisques. There is a guesthouse on the property where guests (pilgrim and non-pilgrim) can stay. Dinner is served in the abbey with other guests (we ate with one of the nuns as well). I would highly recommend to any pilgrim. Price was 35 euros.