Our home was on a busy highway and well off the Via Francigena track, so google maps showed us a nearly non-car road that would cut across a field and join up with our camino track from yesterday. Back along our field track, along the small road through the fir-tree-forest and into the storm-hit village of last night where the council was removing the gravel from the new road that the storm had washed up.
As we rounded a village corner there was an anxious ‘bonjour’ to us from a luscious vegetable garden. It was the woman who gave us directions to our hotel. Not knowing someone had collected us and being very concerned, her husband had driven around the countryside looking for us – she was very relieved to see us.
Then it was Pontarlier, our ultimate goal was reached at last. Stopping for a late breakfast at a boulangerie cafe – one stop shop, the owner informed us excitedly that he had just built a ‘balcony’ and we were the first people to sit on it. I tried to make something out of that fact and the end of our walk, but failed – a photo had to do.
A day’s rest here, sorry 2, because France’s rolling train strikes continue and there are no trains for the next 2 days. That will mean a day less spent with our French friend who nursed Corries blister back to health 2 years ago in Italy. After relaxing in her joyous company, it will be off to explore Lyon, maybe, and then to Holland to spend our final week with our Dutch friend (also from the Italian walk).
Now it’s time for ‘reflection’, as time will be spent looking back on, and exchanging, walk experiences with our friends. So in that sense we will still be walking along not just our ‘track’ but also the many tracks that our friends have trod. And after that we will ‘shut the gate’, pursue other activities, and then wait and see what’s in store for us next year.

In the meantime, we’ll soon be in the link – France and Holland 2018