Day 93 Fayl-Billot to Vitry-sur-Mance
After a late night we arose at 7:00am, not 7:00 pm as I said last night, to get a good start to the day. Our hosts, French and Dutch, and the other couple here, French, speak excellent English. So it seemed to be agreed that we would all speak together in English which was very kind of them all. At breakfast the same convention applied, which I found quite touching and made us feel really welcome.
We managed to get ourselves organised at last and headed out once more towards Italy. Janet does not find hard boiled eggs very palatable, which is a stroke of luck for me as Laura boiled two of the delicious perishers to put in my lunch department for later in the day.
If you find yourselves near Fayl-Billot stay here.
The road leads us on once again. The air was fresh and cool and we had visited a baker, harmony was everywhere.
I love this part of France, it reminds me so much of Gravels Bank and Shelve. The height is more or less the same, the scenery is more or less the same and the barbed wire fences are also much the same. There is no gorse, but, is that a bad thing as there are lots of walnut trees instead?
Our easy route forward was along a quiet country lane, the more challenging route was through a wood. By going through the wood we may, possibly, save 100 metres, no competition then!
Overcoming nettles appears to be the woodland revels we enjoy. Today the nettles were not superabundant. This lack of nettle abundance made us careless, carefree and stung by the occasional specimen nettle hiding amongst other more docile herbage.
The woods are full of these large orange beauties, if anyone knows what they are, don’t just tell me that they are slugs, I really would like to know more stuff.
At Pierrefaites we ran out of steam and needed some sustenance. I think that we discovered a bowling alley.
There are numerous memorials on the roadside, The memorial in the picture above is that of a French person killed by the Prussians, Franco-Prussian war?? Finding this memorial whetted my curiosity for these ever present edifices. I saw a similar memorial hidden in some nettles on the other side of a ditch and had a go at reading it. Having been stung by the guardian nettles and sliding into the ditch I was surprised to find that it was a memorial to a person who loved his family.
I really like Citroen vans and the two in the photo were particularly fine examples.
The stroll today was wonderful, we could have been in Shropshire on a pleasant afternoon.
Closer, ever closer to Switzerland.
Interesting time zone you are on Mike, getting up at 7pm for an early start!
Well spotted!
Very observant!
I was also intrigued by your ‘early’ start. Was there plum brandy after supper?
Bizarrely I googled slugs yesterday evening to enrich a linguistically challenged conversation with an Argentinian friend, wikipedia has some fine illustrations though I can’t recall any so splendidly orange as your Fayl-Billot /Vitry-sur-Mance natives.
Keep bashing those nettles!
Hello Sue, Royce has found the exact model of slug and posted details.
Do you usually talk about slugs with your Argentinian chums?
Slug Watch Bulletin! I’ve just found out that it’s an Arion Rufus more commonly called…… wait for it…….Large Red Slug, also available in orange! Same genus as the ones we often see which are big, long and black – Arion Ater. Yep, I can sense your disappointment.
Franco-Prussian war memorial? Yes, I think you are right.
Regards, Royce.
Royce, thanks for the slug info’. Some of the blighters were quite substantial, both in girth and in length. At first I thought that first one I saw was a carrot hiding under a toadstool.