Day 11. September 4, 2026. La Haye-Pesnel to Genêts. 18 kms

 The world is too much with us, late and soon,

Getting and spending, we lay waste our power.

Little we see in nature that is ours,

We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon.

I begin with another bit of Wordsworth. How prescient he was! At the beginning of the 19th century he was lamenting the rise of commercialism and the loss of man’s bond with natural world. On this walk, I have been communing with nature.

Of course it wasn’t long before I was walking down another sunken road with a field above my head on either side. This road was wide enough, but I woke up last night wondering about the narrow lanes that were just wide enough for a single horse and carriage. What happened if two parties should meet? One horse could hardly back up to allow the other to pass. And then the answer came to me. Of course, they would never have to pass each other because only the Lord of the Manor would drive a carriage on his domain.

Certainly, I was walking on ancient roads which led pilgrims to Mont-Saint-Michel and on to Santiago.

What happened of course was that in modern time these ancient roads became paved over, and only when it was convenient or necessary for the modern engineers to take a detour would the ancient road survive. There is a good example of this in the photo.

Yesterday I came upon a part of the ancient way that had been washed away by the rain, exposing layers of stone and history. A little later on, I observed a sign warning fools on ATVs to ride slowly and not wipe out this history. And speaking of fools:

Last night, courtesy of my genial hosts, I had moules frites for supper. How tiny were the mussels, victim of the warm seas this year around Normandy!

O tiny mussel minuscule,

On thee it’s difficult to drool.

Victim of intemperate fools

Who think the climate theirs to rule.

In case you’re wondering why I lapse into doggerel from time to time:

It serves to pass the time on lonely roads

And helps to ease the pain of heavy loads.

However, doggerelling can have its consequences. Somehow I missed a marker and found myself a couple of kilometres off track. 

However, I arrived out at the village of Montviron and had a nice café crème. At La Butte Es Grosse I thought I should resist the plat de jour à 9€, and at Bacilly I sat down next to the church and settled for my last chunk of saucisson de Lyon. It is a magnificent beast, this sausage: singular, solid, salty and savoury. Grace à mes amis Paul et Michelle, the saucisson has sustained me on walks before and I bid it farewell with thanks.

Ode on a Sausage

Each day at noon

I find it a boon

To gnaw at my sausage from Lyon.

This amorphous mass

Appears rather crass

But its meat would please the Pan-theon.

It’s a shape quite absurd,

Like a fossilized turd,

Its brown and white skin is quite scabulous,

But I have to admit

I enjoy every bit,

For the taste of this sausage is fabulous.

Only four kilometres to Genets said the sign. I chose this little road because it led past a place called l’Enfer. I wondered if I might see the diable, but when I arrived he was nowhere to be seen. In the yard was a van that specialized in Toilettage Mobile. Nothing hellish in that. On the contrary! In any case, I have it on good authority that the devil has now manifested himself in AI.

I’ve decided that my poles don’t clang, they clack.

Oh my feet do they clump and my poles do they clack,

And my pack it lies heavily down on my back.

And at times I feel like I’m stretched on the rack

And my body grows weary, alas and alack,

But the last kilometers, I think I can hack

For the beer at the end that I long to attack!

Alas, the bar was closed when I arrived, but I foraged around, and a nice girl at the boulangerie sold me a Steampunk IPA, and even opened it for me. Ice cold, it was a good substitute for the draught beer I had expected.

Tomorrow, I walk to the Mont-Saint-Michel.

Day 10. September 3, 2026. Villedieu-les-Poêlles to La Haye-Pesnel 20 kms

 The clump of my feet and the clang of my poles

Are the sounds that I hear as I march to my goal, 

The occasional rumble from far away farms

And the murmuring  dove are part of the charm.

I set out as the church bell struck nine. I wish I could convey the sound of the church bells in France. This is the best I can do:

Booooooiiiiiiinnnnnnggggggg!

Today I determined to follow the Chemin de Caen. It was lonely and peaceful. I ambled along minor roads, farm tracks, country lanes and ancient stony ways through the Bocage.

To begin the day I walked along a very old path indeed, medieval, certainly,perhaps even Roman, for I walked over some very large,smooth flagstones  that formed the base of the old road.

Happily the trail was well sign posted. Along with tblue balise of the Mont there were the horizontal stripes of the local randonné, which was also called le Chemin du Mont-Saint-Michel.

I walked along country roads with fields of corn stubble stretching out across the valley, the only sounds the clump of my feet and  clank of my poles and the occasional cooing of a dove. And I passed dairy farms where the bespectacled vaches normandes gazed at me curiously. I passed an old well and an ancient lavabo where a farming family must have done its washing for centuries.

A little lost dog ran past me and then turned around and came running back.  Happily he disappeared ahead, and I hope he found his way hom. In the past they have attached themselves to me and followed me all day. Once I did everything possible to lose my new companion for I worried about leading him too far from home and into traffic. I tried hiding, hoping he would abandon me, but all to no avail. I arrived  at a town, and was wondering what to do because I was about to cross the highway, when a lady yelled from a house: “Don’t worry I’ll phone his mistress. He does this all the time.”

Yesterday I plodded and trudged. Today I ambled in glorious peace and solitude. I once had a bet with a Norwegian woman that there were more words for walking in English, than in Norwegian. I was thinking of the public footpaths in England and the episodes of walking in English novels. But I lost.

I was glad that I had walked all the way on the Chemin and had taken no short cuts, even when it took a detour around three sides of a rectangle and forced me to wait a little longer for a cold beer.  It is worth walking 20 kms to earn a Leffe at the end of the day. And there is nothing, absolutely nothing like the first long swig

Day 9. September 2, 2026. Saint-Sever-Calvados à Villedieu-les-Poêlles. 24 kms

 I only want a little bit of butter for my bread (A. A. Milne)

Mishaps occur in threes, don’t they? If so, it is smooth sailing for the next few days.

I set out without breakfast this morning, hoping to have a croissant and a coffee in town. My landlady had promised me bread, but I couldn’t find it anywhere. I think she was a little confused. She had expected me the day before my arrival.

According to Apple Maps, my way to town was clear: continue down Beauregard Road, turn left and then right onto a track through the woods. Le Sever Calvados, it said. A delightful trail down into the woods along the creek, and then the climb to end all climbs, one of those climbs that actually get longer as you climb. Finally, I arrived at what should have been the town, but no, it was a wide forest track, obviously a fire break of some kind, and I continued for a while, quite lost. Then I realized that I was in the forest of Saint Sever Calvados, not the town. My coffee and croissant were far out of reach. 

So I sat down and ate a literal crust of bread, three days old, and the exercise in chewing it would have nullified the calories consumed.

The third mishap occurred soon after, but it’s too embarrassing and too boring to recount in detail. In brief, I discovered a marker for the Chemin but after several kilometres I found myself in the middle of the forest without an Internet connection, and thought it safer to return to the village. So I drank my café creme, and as the church bells chimed eleven, and having already walked nine kilometres, I began again.

As I left the café I was encouraged by a local gentleman who was interested in what I was doing. When I told him I was walking for 15 kilometres along the road to Villedieu-les-Poelles, he said it was a very busy road. “Beaucoup de circulation. On roule très mal en Calvados.” A true Norman!

But as I walked out of town, my spirits revived: the sun was shining, and I was walking into a cool breeze. Things could only look up.

I passed in quick succession the remains of three creatures who had tried in vain to cross the road. A bird, a cat and the hedgehog. Busy traffic indeed!

Ode to a Hedgehog

Hale to thee, unhappy Hedgehog,

Cut down before thy time.

Hadst thou but stayed among the sedge, Hog,

I'd not have penned this rhyme.

Thou must have spied a tasty snack

And ventured on the road,

But then there came a mighty whack,

By Fate on thee bestowed.

Hadst thou but crawled into the ditch

To find thyself a bite,

Then life would not be such a bitch,

And things would be all right.

There is a moral to this tale

From which we all can learn:

We well may seek the Holy Grail,

But end up in an Urn. (From a former walk)

I’ve also been passing little piles of black scat. Perhaps the foxes have been eating blackberries.

And apart from the scat, there have been interesting things to see along the way: little tracks leading off into the bocage, avenues of trees, stately oaks, cords of wood neatly stacked for winter, bales of hay, old stone houses, fields of corn already harvested and yet to be harvested, and lots of cows, including the bespectacled vache normande. And I passed a tractor idling by the side of the road with no driver in sight. I could easily have commandeered it and ridden in style to Villedieu.

Finally, I arrived, and am staying at the Hotel Saint-Pierre.

Day 8. September 1, 2026. Beny Bocage to Saint-Sever-Calvados. 27 kms

Shades of the prison house

Begin to close upon the growing boy (Wordsworth)

 

Yes, that’s me, walking down a sunken  lane typical of the Bocage region in Normandy. These old rights of way are bordered by hedges and sunk below the level of the neighbouring fields. According to Jean, my host at the gîte, they were constructed in medieval times by the paysans who would dig down to solid ground to provide a road for their masters’ horses and carts.  It became their responsibility to keep the road open by heaping the dirt high on either side. And they didn’t want to look bad. Imagine if their stretch of the lane was blocked!

Jean accompanied me for a few kilometres along the lane, and then pointed me in the right direction to the only village with a bar en route.

After seven kilometres I arrived at the village of Etouvy to the sound of a hundred children at the elementary schoolyard screaming and running madly in every direction. Usually in a schoolyard at playtime, as well as the kids running around you see smaller groups strolling about, and one or two loners, but not here. Perhaps they were excited to be back at school. Or not. Whatever their motivation, they were happy, energized kids, every one of them. I refrain from commenting on electronic distractions.

I went into the bar for my usual café creme, for this was the only café en route, and then, as I left, occurred one of those petits contretemps that can throw the best laid plans astray. 

I turned on my phone to consult the map and I found that I had no Internet connection. Bloody hell, I thought I’ve run out of data. But how can I get some more if I can’t connect with my mobile phone provider. I had to find Wi-Fi.

I returned to the bar. No luck. I tried the boulangerie. No luck. I walked half a kilometre to the mairie. Not open. I tried the rec centre. Not open. I returned to the centre. My only other option was a beauty salon, and there I found two delightful women who were only too anxious to help. First, they had to find the password, and when they succeeded after ten minutes of searching, it was about 300 characters long. I tried. No luck, so one of the ladies did it for me and I was able to contact my provider. But I wasn’t out of data at all. I had loads left, so I did what I should have done in the first place: I turned off my phone and turned it on again, and lo and behold I had an Internet connection. The moral of the story is not hard to find. I said to the kind ladies if I had any hair, I would let them cut it in recompense.

During our conversation, the ladies at the salon had wondered if I was walking along la voie verte. No, I said, I will be trying to find the Chemin de Caen. But as I walked out of town, I came upon the voie verte: a pedestrian and cycle path along a disused railway line with a sign which said Mont Saint Michel, my ultimate destination. And did it pass through Saint-Sever-Calvados, I asked a cyclist sitting on an a bench? Yes, she said. Wary of going astray, I confirmed this with everyone I passed. Yes, it goes to Vire and then, Saint-Sever. A disused railway line is the easiest path of all. No hills.

I arrived at Vire. I passed through the town and found the voie verte again. Saint-Sever-Calvados, 21 kms, said the sign. Indeed the old railway line had served Saint Sever, but it must have taken a detour to serve an important town or person along the way. I was only 10 kms from my destination by the highway so I had no choice but to walk along the road. Thus my day which had begun with a glorious hike, ended with a miserable trudge. 

Day 7. Saint-Jean-le-Blanc to Beny Bocage. August 31, 2026. 18 kms

My heart leaps up when I behold

A church spire in the sky (apologies to WW).

I set out early this morning, having awoken at five o’clock. It was another windy day, and as I left town, the sun dipped between the moving clouds and lit up the landscape, first the far row of trees, and then the next, and then the next, and the fields in between, but this lighting of the landscape could only last a moment, for soon the heavy clouds prevailed. A magical moment!

I spied a couple of deer ahead of me, and when they saw me, unlike their Victoria cousins who march slowly across the street expecting the traffic to wait for them, these timid creatures frantically bounded away in opposite directions. 

And then I came upon the Mont-Saint-Michel marker, the first I had seen since starting out yesterday. This sent me down a long and leafy lane, green above and brown below, and into a valley and along a creek. This was the most pleasant stretch of the day, but when I reached the road there was no marker to be seen.

For the rest of the day I walked along the roads, passing  fields of corn, and in the afternoon, some dairy farms as well. The cows would watch with interest as I walked by. Perhaps I was relieving their boredom, as the major item of interest between milking and feeding.

It rained intermittently in the afternoon. Sometimes I could make it stop by putting on my rain coat but then it set in, and the wind was strong and driving into my face. I trudged on, head down, for several kilometres, until I spied a church spire ahead. Faint hope, but you never know, and then some more buildings, and one with a promising sign. Yes, a bar. I staggered in. “Un cafe crème,” I spluttered.

Seventy years ago, as a teenage thing, I rode my bike from Perth to Bunbury, a distance of 116 miles. Two-thirds of the way along, I stopped for a coke — ice cold, and I always remember it as the best I had ever drunk. Now it is coffee that sustains me, and the coffee I had today at Montchamp was almost as memorable.

It was a convivial bar. Everyone was shouting.  People came and went, shaking everybody’s hand as they entered, including mine. I moved outside, for the noise had become deafening. One of the tables was dry. Clouds were racing across the sky and I would sit for a few minutes in the warmth of the sun before being spattered with a few drops of rain. It was delightfully calm until a couple of smokers moved outside, and a kid raced up the street on a dreaded two-stroke, the bane of many a French village.

Another hour’s march brought me to Beny Bocage where I am staying at an airBnB hosted by Jean who speaks French at lightning speed and keeps goats and chooks in his back yard.