In the morning I visited a bit with the family at breakfast and then got a fairly early start to Vitry-le-Francois. Of course I wanted to pick up the canal again but I was at some distance. Google sent me through the small village and along a country road near a railway track, and then it veered off onto a path that led past a couple of lakes where swans were swimming placidly and other swans were far off in the opposite field.
At this point I was walking on grass with a few vague ruts. The map indicated that I should curve around the field up ahead and continue on. When I reached said field, it was fully planted, with new shoots, and there was no path in view. I left the chariot and gingerly picked my way across, not wanting to damage the young plants, and looked around everywhere. Beyond the field was a bog.
Reluctantly, I made my way back out past the lake and onto the clear path and considered my options. I didn’t want another dead end. It was cold and gray and not a pleasant day for detours. And I wanted to get back to my canal, damn it!
I found a way that seemed trustworthy and picked my way there carefully. It passed between some rather boggy fields and clouds of insects, but eventually it got me out to a main departmental road and then, yes, the canal, adding about 3km to the day’s total. It undermined my trust in the map though, and I try to remember to study any off-path recommendations carefully.
On the canal I met two cycling pals who were riding together for a few days, then one was continuing on around France. They were excited to hear I was going to Jerusalem, and one even called his friend in Jerusalem on WhatsApp to tell him, but alas he wasn’t at home… He’s got a picture of me, so who knows, maybe he’ll run into me on the street there and say, Hey, Je vous connais!…
This stretch of the canal did not have much traffic but had signs of older industries, some of which were not identifiable, just ruins that somehow added to the charm as they crumbled away through the effects of wind and water. I knew that on the other side of a large bluff there was a quarry and later there was a big factory with a train crossing (and the slowest train ever…)
But alas, my canal-idyll finally came to an end with a walk through a park and then I was in the town of Vitry le Francois, where I found a really good Indian restaurant for dinner and stayed in a peculiar hotel in the center of town with an old guy at reception wearing a jumpsuit open on his graying chest, quasi-Egyptian statuary in the entry way, long lugubrious hallways, but mercifully, a bright and airy room and a wonderful bathtub. Walking back from dinner the light of the setting sun on the central square turned the cathedral golden.
Tomorrow, Paris! Holy Week and Pascha.
