On French Soil Assailed by Doubts

If this was an academic essay, I would start thus: there is so much inefficiency in the bipedal mode of transport in the modern era, that the author now believes walking to be a fool’s errand! But doubts are part of the course on any long journey, so let me start at the start.

In France the Via Francigena starts at Notre Dame in the centre of the port city of Calais. From here you walk towards the coast, across the canal, then ramble through a bit of suburbia to a concrete promenade which hovers over the beach following the coast line pretty much all the way to Wissant.

The coastal route GR 120, with its startling views of the ‘white cliffs of Dover’ across the channel on a clear day, is as comfortable as hiking gets – flat and with photo opportunities galore.

GR 145, which cuts back from the coast line, before re-joining it at the Dover Patrol Monument, is slightly longer and a tad uphill. So I grumble when my meticulous Walking Buddy insists on taking the official VF. Doesn’t he know all roads lead to Rome? On the other hand, this venture is all about the road, and not at all about Rome, I am eventually forced to concede.

Despite that small Hill Difficulty (which I mention only to show off my familiarity with the English classic Pilgrim’s Progress and not to impugn my Walking Buddy, who happens to belong to a certain Hill clan), the day is as good as walking gets, easy and beautiful.

Wissant is a lovely little sea-side resort, with a Friday night market in the village square, selling local produce. Someone has decked out the church with the little white blossoms we have been admiring along the way.

The walk into Wissant, and even more the way out of it to Guines, is marked with remnants of war, both medieval and modern, some memorialised officially and others turned into sites for protest.

Day 2, the walk to Guines, starts with the anticipation of meeting Micheline at Mont du Couple, making real a Facebook virtual friendship. The track is uninspiring, but not unpleasant.

At Landrethun-le-Nord, after farewelling Micheline, we go against her advice and the official VF to follow an alternative map which seems to be more direct, though with some sections on a D road. Our final 4 kms into Guines, turn out to be on the edges of a highway with cars screaming past every minute.

Perhaps there is a benefit in the getting of self-knowledge: I HATE walking where cars abound but I never again wish to pay with my fragile sanity for confirmation of this knowledge😑

Information from other pilgrims that the official VF path into Guines is uninspiring only adds to my anxiety. Just four days into the walk, the VF is wearying, different, alien. It’s not like the South West Coast Path in UK, which I remember as exciting and challenging. Unlike the Camino, the folks in track towns don’t cheer the walkers on. So what will keep me walking this road, I wonder.

We decide to go off the track for a couple of days to Saint-Omer, to see one of Europe’s oldest libraries. A free bus takes us back to Calais in 35 minutes – the distance that we covered on foot in two days, and which cost us two nights of accommodation and food. Then a half hour in the train and we are in Saint-Omer.

Walking seems completely illogical in a place where transport is easy, cheap and even from an environmental point of view, the marginal cost in greenhouse gas-generating fuel per passenger, is negligible.

Saint-Omer is a sweet old town, with gourmet eateries and historic monuments. It would be so easy to stay for a bit, then move to some place where curated tourist fodder is more readily at hand.

But for now, we are committed to getting back on track tomorrow, a very short walk into Wisques will bring us back to the Via Francigena.

When in doubt the Believers turn to God. For Bengalis there is always রবি ঠাকুর (Tagore to the rest of the world, but almost a deity to us).

“ওগো পায়ে চলার পথ, অনেক কালের অনেক কথাকে তোমার ধূলিবন্ধনে বেঁধে নীরব করে রেখো না। আমি তোমার ধুলোয় কান পেতে আছি, আমাকে কানে কানে বলো।” ‘Dear walking path, all the stories you have gathered through the ages, don’t keep them quietly secured in your dust cover. I have my ears pressed to your dust, whisper them to me.’