Day 23-25

Day 23-Rocroi to Signy-l'Abbaye 32+kms
We leave Rocroi crossing the ramparts of the old walled town travelling south. Quiet local roads, whispering fir trees, rustling oaks & beech. No other noises but birds, trees & the tap of walking poles. Undulating landscape, cows come to the fence to greet us as we walk by. Weather warm & sunny. We follow the scallop shell signs, through overgrown paths, woods & on a narrow space between 2 rows of barbed wire fencing a metre apart. Here we stay in a privat home. There is a Commonwealth War Grave in the cemetery but I can't see it when I look among the white crosses.

Day 24-Signy to Chateau-Porcien 26.5kms
Off along the road to Lalobbe, after first buying supplies for our journey at the local boulangerie. We pass through the small village if Wasigny with it's beautifully restored, very large market hall/place in the town square. We stop for lunch under a large walnut tree before taking the path through grass, between the fields of wheat. Just outside Hauteville we meet another pilgrim, Jo, from Belgium. Maize, golden barley, wheat, peas straight on towards the wind turbines which we pass between. A stamp for our pilgrim passport at the town hall and the code for the door at the municipal refuge. We will be 4 in a room just over 2 m wide x 4 m long. My bed is a fold out one which, when made up blocks the door to the bathroom. Washing hangs to dry on the fence of the school next door.

Day 25-Chateau-Porcien to Bazancourt 22km
We get our morning coffee at the bar where we had dinner last night but we provide our own food. Along farm roads, past a factory, through fields, gentle ups & downs, maize, beets, canola, wheat, barley, lucerne and even a field of opium poppies with no security. We enter the Champagne region but no grape vines just yet. We wait for the town hall to open at 3pm to get our stamp and the key to the refuge- through the green gate. Part of a community performing arts complex. The local restaurant is closed to we get supplies at the supermarket, make our dinner & have enough also for breakfast.