Day 6, Licques to Wisques, Friday Feb. 25

Long day. Started with big breakfast, courtesy of madame: fromage frais, kiwi fruit, juice, bread, butter and jam and croissants. Plus coffee. On the road at 8:30. We were facing our longest day yet.

Weather forecast was wrong. It said no rain. But the reality was constant drizzle ("bruine" in French) until 1 pm with a couple of bouts of rain.

Still, it was pleasant walking, mostly on quiet secondary roads in what would be quite lovely countryside in the sun. There was one tracked bit where we were startled to see a horse and buggy coming towards us. We did a double-take. A Mennonite? In rural France?? No, an old guy on a racing sulky.

Serendipity? Each Friday, at 9 am eastern time we pray for a special family intention. Today, just before 3 pm French time (9 am eastern), we came up to a roadside shrine to the Madonna. So we gratefully said our prayers there.

By 3:30 we reached l'Abbaye de Notre Dame at Wisques. These are Benedictine sisters who welcome pilgrims. They welcomed us. Went to Vespers. Gregorian chant. In Latin. Beautiful.

There will be Lauds and mass in the morning. If every day ended like this it would feel more like a real pilgrimage.

Tomorrow we take the train for Calais and the ferry back to England.

24 km, 7 hours

Day 5, Guines to Licques, Thursday Feb. 24

No rain. Alleluia!

Today was an off-road sort of day. Through some forests, along fields. Over the EuroStar tracks.

Interesting path-finding. Guidebook (or navigator – me) not always flawless. But saw more Via Francigena signs than we'd ever seen before. But sometimes the signs are knocked down.

Lots of mud. Wendy doesn't like mud.

Passed (somewhere – it wasn't marked) the Field of the Cloth of Gold where, in 1520, Henry VIII had a big summit with Francis I of France. Went on for 3 weeks. Cost a lot of money for a lot of "Big Man" conspicuous consumption and general national showing off. Not much accomplished. Some things don't change. (They chose drier weather -- June. Smart move.).

Getting close to Licques we met an interesting Belgian couple. They were “geo-caching” – a new form of competition where you use GPS to find hidden messages. They were doing some kind of Via Francigena geo-caching. They walked the Camino de Santiago last fall. They said the sign-age there was superb. VF “more of an adventure”. Yeah.

Reached the Camping des Trois Pays at 3pm where we rented a chalet for a very reasonable E40. The restaurant was closed for the season, but madame rustled us up a superb salad with magnificent fries. MacDonald's – not even close. All washed down with Kronenbourg. And so to bed....

20 km, 6 hours

Day 4, Wissant to Guines, Wednesday Feb. 23

No more bacon and eggs. Breakfast this morning was a very large cup of cafe au lait and an entire loaf of very fresh and crusty French bread, butter, cheese and jam. Quite enjoyable, if not particularly healthy.

Then outside where there were the first few drops of light rain. Knowing that the forecast was for more rain later in the morning, we put all our rain gear on. Good move. The rain gradually got steadier and steadier.

We said goodbye to the sea (although its gray was indistinguishable from the gray of the sky) and proceeded inland. We won't see the sea again until Rome – well, not really even then.

Today's route was all secondary road through rolling farmland. Easy going. The rain got heavier and the wind stronger. But by 1 pm we were at our destination and enjoying a hot shower in a warm room. With WiFi.

Dinner was superb: Carbonnade Flamande. You can feel the influence of Flanders. Well, of course this was Flanders in the Middle Ages. You can see it in a lot of the place names, as well as the cuisine -- and the beer.

15 km, 3 ½ hours.

Day 3 Dover to Wissant, February 22

Great day sight-seeing yesterday in Dover. Four hours in Dover Castle. Very extensive site. Continuous military occupation since before Roman times (stone age hill fort) to the Cold War. Central keep built by Henry II to impress high ranking guest pilgrims from the Continent coming to Canterbury on the Becket pilgrimage. Roman light house. Saxon church. Second world war tunnels for Operation Dynamo (Dunkirk evacuation). Dover museum in town – Bronze age boat. Oldest boat in the world: 2500 BC.

Ferry to Calais this morning. Arrive 1100.

Get lost in Calais briefly. Sun comes out. Walk along busy coast road. Leave for hiking path where we meet nice French couple. Our age or younger. Very fit. 18 grand children. Six children: 1 son, 5 daughters. Youngest child 39! We walk with them.

They show us route via Cap Blanc Nez. Very nice, sunny – but longer than road. Past endless German blockhouses at the top of the cliffs. Monument to French and British navies of WWI. Bomb craters.

This is where the huge German guns were with which they shelled Dover – even as far as Canterbury!

Calais and Boulogne were liberated by Canadian troops in September, 1944.

Why Wissant? Because this is probably where Sigeric landed; not Calais. Tomorrow we head east and inland. If today had been clear we would have been in sight of England all day. But not tomorrow!

Wissant by 5:30. 18 km, 6 hours; 3 km/h. Lovely day.

End day with excellent moules frites and biere de l'abbaye at Chez Edwige. Not sore. Legs, arms, shoulders, back seem to be toughening up.

Day 2 Shepherdswell to Dover, February 20, 2011

Breakfast was early, but leaving was late. We were at a lovely B & B in a little hamlet outside Shepherdswell run by an absolutely lovely couple, Jackie and Daryl Colret. Breakfast was lovely, topped off with Jackie's home-made, prize-winning Seville orange marmalade. We lingered....

Daryl is a Ranger for the North Downs Way and a mind of information. He plotted us a route to Dover that avoided the muddiest bits of the NDW (going should be easier on the continent, he told us, as the trails are mostly on metalled roads).

He also told us a great story from 2007. Romano Prodi, the Italian Prime Minister wanted a big splash in Canterbury to publicize the Via Francigena. A fervent European and a devout Catholic, he had made reviving the Via Francigena part of his election platform (The idea of an Italian alternative to the successful Camino in Spain obviously appealed to voters. He said: “The pathways of our ancestors are a great heritage. It really makes me angry that we do not have pilgrims walking to Rome any longer. To rebuild the pilgrims' path we do not need grand investments, but heart”.)

An altar made of Aosta marble was sent to Canterbury Cathedral. A fast walker set out from Rome to Canterbury with an entourage of Italian reporters. Daryl met him in Dover for the last dash to Canterbury where they were to meet the Italian deputy Prime Minister, the Dean of the Cathedral and the Lord Mayor of Canterbury. Unfortunately, they were held up leaving Dover by some Italian ladies with inappropriate footwear. The result was they were half an hour late getting to the Cathedral and the party was over and the dignitaries gone. And this poor guy had walked all the way from Rome.

Once we got going our day was misty but pleasant enough. We were looking forward to visiting a little chapel where Lord North, the prime minister who lost the American co

lonies, was buried. Alas, I screwed up the map-reading and we missed it.

Still, the final walk into Dover, ending at Dover Castle was very dramatic.

And now we're at the end of England ... the sea.

Tomorrow, sight-seeing in Dover. Tuesday, France

Day 1 Canterbury to Shepherdswell, February 19, 2011

Day 1 of our Canterbury to Rome pilgrimage along the Via Francigena started at the great Cathedral again (after visiting Canterbury's very interesting Roman museum – which seemed appropriate).

Got our Pilgrim Passport (new one) stamped. Went inside the Cathedral for blessing. The duty chaplain, a very nice man, was Peter Rowe (a nice bit of serendipity -- Rowe is Wendy's mom's maiden name). He gave us a very Catholic blessing, commending our pilgrimage to the protection of Our Lady, in the chapel of Our Lady of the Undercroft in the crypt.

Then at 12:30 – after venerating relics of St. Thomas a Becket in the local Catholic church -- we were off, in the rain.

There was a steady light rain all day. Fields muddy. Yuck. And slippery. I rescued myself from a ski slide several times and but finally succumbed, fell down and got all muddy. Wendy didn't. She was generally tougher. My right leg is a traitor.

But it was good to be walking, and the scenery generally pleasant.

Into the village of Sheperdswell at dusk, about 10 miles from Canterbury. So, a rate of about 2 miles an hour. Good supper with a couple of pints at the Bell Inn. Then we trudged another ¾ mile in the dark (a little scary on a narrow lane between hedgerows) to Colret House B&B, our lodging for the evening. Tired!