Last Sunday I went on one of the Canadian Club hikes, a day-long trek from Chars to Meulun (23.6k). Two things should be known: always get to the train station EARLY to have time to buy a ticket at the window in case the automated machine is out of order (or doesn’t take your credit card); and never try hiking with the Canadian Club in anything other than real hiking boots (your feet will regret it, otherwise).
Here we are checking out the old church in Chars at the start of the hike.
Brian shows us the route on a topography map. We’re heading for the Chaussée Jules César, an old vestige of a Roman road into Paris. He advises the "slow" people in the back to keep a map on them just in case. Then he takes off at lightning speed, leaving us all in the dust.
The hike starts off casually enough under the shade of the forest trees. We even think we have time to stop and smell the roses!
But as the sun gets higher in the sky, we leave our lovely forested trail and follow Brian into a endlessly stretching fields of wheat with no trees in sight. Bordered by stinging nettles (note: long pants not a bad idea on these hikes).
We find a patch of trees with enough shade to eat our lunch. Apparently, this is the Roman bit here.
Here are my sidekicks for the day, Lena & Pedro (wishing they’d left the black fur coats at home).
The post-lunch half of the walk is also tree-free. But notice those clouds are getting poofy (that’s a French meteorological term).
Here’s one of the cute villages we pass through. The horse is just a lawn ornament for the tourists.
We stop in front of a private château for a group photo. A few minutes later we enter the town of Villette, and Brian thinks it might be fun to hop over an old stone wall to see another château, designated on his map. Luckily for all involved, I actually recognized the name, Château de Villette (aka Teabing’s mansion in the Da Vinci Code), and thought it might be more heavily guarded than your average country home. As we rounded the front to peer through the gate, indeed there was some sort of large pair of jaws with four legs frolicking on the grounds with some teenagers. They wouldn’t let us in for iced tea (with nor without lemon).
After a day of sweltering heat, it begins to bucket down raining fifteen minutes before we arrive at the train station. We all get soaked. Here Pedro & Lena, completely pooped out, dry themselves in the sun while waiting for the ride home. They wouldn’t look at me for two days afterwards. 😉
PS Thanks Philippe for the extra photos!
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