WHEN WALKING

Home to Santiago – Day 19

Draché to Châtellerault: 35km

Breakfast is prepared by Emmanuel, and I come down just in time to see Marie leave for work. He makes the coffee, as requested, and stays to chat. I realise that discussing the route would be the easiest topic for both of us, and also useful for me. And so together we’re able to shorten what would have been a very long day.

Nothing major happens, but for a day covering a relatively long distance, and often following the track of the road, the constant interruption of villages breaks up the journey nicely and provides shady places to rest. As the panic of going hungry is also removed by the string of villages and small towns along the road, I don’t need to overload at the first supermarket I come to either. It would be hard to sell today’s walk in a travel brochure, but sometimes it is good to change prettiness for practicalities.

Dangé-Saint-Romain is the perfectly placed lunch stop. A well-designed square, set back from the main road restores its village feel and gives a break from the car land that has started since joining the main road.

So after Dangé-Saint-Romain, I’m pretty much alongside the traffic. Walking out of town past the last few houses, I enjoy seeing the faded old painted advertising signs from when this must have been a far more major road before the building of the motorway. Considerately, a walking and cycle path has been put to one side of the main road, with a few trees for shade.

I quite enjoy the straightforward ground-covering walk towards Châtellerault, with a few suburbs scattered in between. I use the easy walking to plan ahead and have a lovely conversation with the woman at the halte jacquaire in Dissay for tomorrow night. It’s funny how your fluency depends so much on the person you’re speaking to. It makes me think more than ever that we should train people to speak to non-native speakers.

Apparently there will be four of us tomorrow night, so the numbers are growing. I expect it will be the same four that I will meet tonight. This is the first of two staging post before Poitiers. And I think, for the first time in my walking life, I have three nights all booked in advance.

As I take a shortcut through the parking area of a large commercial zone on the border of Châtellerault, a man shouts out that I’m going the wrong way. His wife comes over from Aldi and they both start asking about my walk as they pack their bicycles with the shopping. A few minutes later, as I’m continuing on my way they overtake me “Quick, quick!” the man shouts before the both of them cycle off laughing.

I carry on, and just as I enter the town proper, I hear a woman’s voice shouting “You’ve arrived! You’ve arrived!” I turn round. It is the same woman, but she has already passed. But her husband is there behind her, shouting out happily, “More fast, more fast!” I feel as though I now have friends in Châtellerault.

The centre of Châtellerault is pretty: a castle, a beautiful cathedral-like church, and the friendliest, nicest welcome at the tourist office. I like this sort of town, important enough locally to have things to look at and all the facilities (by which I mean multiple supermarkets), and yet somewhere I don’t think I’d ever think to visit if I wasn’t walking through.

Two other women are checking in at the same time as me. When I get to the Halte Pelérin (pilgrim lodgings), they are already settling in: Marie from Belgium and Elsa from Nantes. The two boys, the other guests, whose backpacks announce their presence, will not appear until after the lights are out.

Elsa is suffering and deciding whether or not to continue. Marie, I can tell, is very keen to do as much as she can. They get on well, but I understand that walking tension. It’s one of the reasons it can be much easier to walk on your own.

The Halte Pelérin is in the truly splendid setting of the Hôtel de Sully, right near the river. Our quarters are in a little ramshackle wing, with an elegant curved side staircase to what should be the dormitory room upstairs in the eaves. Sadly, it’s too hot in this weather, and we all bunk down in the living room.

I put on a wash (a washing machine – all the facilies) and go for a wander around town, eventually sitting on the banks of the Vienne and sitting in the sun, something I’ve avoided all day. But in the evening, after a shower, unburdened it’s quite pleasant to bask.