E5 Days 31-35

Friday, April 5 2024

Straight ahead through the forest to the spa

• Breakfast in bed is the perfect start to the day.
• Mainly, however, thanks to not-so-good news: Matthäus is a bit ill and groggy and more rest this morning won’t do any harm.
• So we eat jam sandwiches, mandarins, bananas and cookies and, much to my delight, watch climbing – the Asian Qualifiers for the Olympic Games – and all that in bed!

• We then set off at a leisurely pace through the beautiful village of Domfront, past countless half-timbered houses and into the forest and Parc Naturel, through which the route takes us today.

• In our experience, ‘forest paths’ can be anything: from stream beds with a stream in them to totally muddy paths and forest roads that you can walk along without any difficulty.
• We see at least one stream bed, but otherwise the paths are in very good condition and we make good progress.

• The weather has improved, although it is still grey in grey, but at least it has stopped raining.

• To our surprise, we meet other long-distance hikers, and this in plural! (rather astonishing considering the handful we have seen so far).
• At one point we see an enchanted-looking, half-collapsed tower in the middle of the forest – it’s easy to understand how legends are born.
• We continue on through the forest into the town of Bagnoles d’Orne.

• It’s a place that has already seen its best years and still exudes the flair of a place for rich people who go to spas – one building in its former 19th century splendour is next to another, hotels, a casino on the lake, spas, thermal baths and the odd holidaymaker in between characterise the townscape, although everything seems rather deserted now in the low season.
• Our hotel also has a spa, which we of course make use of and book a one-hour spa session all to ourselves.
• Whirlpool, sauna, hammam – this is all we need and we really do enjoy our evening in the spa =)

Saturday, April 6 2024

Helicopter, forest and roadside ditch

• Breakfast at the hotel, slowly get ready and off we go.

• Off to the bakery, where we are not the only ones on this Saturday morning and where we stock up on croissants, pain au chocolats, baguettes (lentil baguettes!) and sandwiches.
• We soon leave Bagnoles d’Orne and civilisation behind us and turn into deserted forest paths – quite strange after the ‘many’ people who were out and about in Bagnoles.

• Although we catch another glimpse of civilisation as we walk past the airfield, where a helicopter is just taking off – supposedly a tourist helicopter for sightseeing flights over the beautiful countryside.

• In the meantime, we experience the beautiful nature up close as we trudge through muddy paths and forest tracks again.
• At least the condition of the paths is a little better than yesterday.

• Nevertheless, they are so bad that we don’t meet any Saturday afternoon walkers, or maybe it’s because we are once again in the inaccessible Parc National or because there is no car park nearby.
• At the halfway point, we reach a lake where we actually want to take a break, which turns out to be a total flop, because the lake is another one of those inaccessible French lakes where, firstly, you’re not allowed to swim and, secondly, there’s a fence all round to stop you getting any ideas – and here in the middle of nowhere!

• A good 2 kilometres later, there is still no bench, tree trunk or anything else, so we simply sit down for a break in the meadow next to the field, which is the least muddy.
• On a section of the path, we see a farmer with a tractor, who we see again not far away – thanks to a detour in the GR.
• At one point we come across an old, rather frail-looking man and I think: ‘Wow, respect that he’s travelling on foot!’ until we spot his car in the ditch shortly afterwards – then we think: ‘Thank goodness he’s still able to walk and hopefully he’ll find someone at the farm who can get him out.’

• This is confirmed a little later by a woman who comes our way shortly afterwards: yes, her son lives there, he has a tractor.
• Shopping in Carrouges, a beautiful village with old stone houses, then chilling out in a lovely gite.

Sunday, April 7

„Ants, Ants everywhere!“

• We set off and walk to Carrouger Castle, about 2 kilometres away, which was built here as a fortification on the border of Normandy during the 100 Years’ War.

• The entire castle complex is very well preserved and is beautifully situated, surrounded by a 10-hectare park, which is also well worth a visit.

• We walk through it to the castle, which is surrounded by a moat – which looks splendid in the bright sunshine.

• We get tickets and start our self-guided tour in the inner courtyard, from where you can see the different wings from the various centuries: Both the fortified castle complex from the 14th century and the ‘classic castle’, which was extended in the 16th century more for ‘see-and-be-seen’ reasons.

• Much of the interior furnishings are still original, which gives the rooms a great atmosphere and almost immerses the visitor in the time when nobility and lords of the manor came and stayed here.

• We reach the hiking trail again through the small, pretty town of Carrouges.
• Our route today takes us through a lot of forest on paths of all sizes: Forest tracks, small paths, beaten tracks, hollow paths – but they all have one thing in common: they are extremely muddy!

• Right towards the end there is another particularly bad patch of mud, just before we – to our great relief – continue along a road.

• A small road, mind you, which, it looks like, leads to nowhere – a nowhere, after all, in which our accommodation is located.

• It is small and charming, but suffers from an acute ant infestation that is so bad that we wish we had bear bags to hang our food in.

• As best we can, we stow everything that is open hanging from the ceiling and hope for the best.

Monday, April 8

Thunderstorms and detours that pay off

• A cosy breakfast in the accommodation, together with a thousand ants, but also delicious as usual: croissants, pain au chocolat and freshly squeezed orange juice are of course a must.

• We set off along beautiful country lanes, into the grey day under a cloudy sky.

• Suddenly we see lightning ahead of us and a thunderstorm surprises us out of nowhere.
• We look around, the surrounding farms are all at least half a kilometre away and judging by the short distance between lightning and thunder, the storm is directly above us – oh dear!
• Being in an open field is not ideal, but the farms are too far away, so we decide to take refuge in a small wood, where we wait out the worst of the downpour.

• Nevertheless, it hits us so hard that we and especially our shoes are completely soaked afterwards.
• The good thing is that we don’t mind stomping through the streams that the paths have now mutated into.
• Conveniently, my shoes already have several holes in them – at least the water can flow through them easily – in and out!
• Surprisingly, it stops raining a little later, so we can take our lunch break in the dry.

• By chance, we discover a sign right next to the bench we have chosen for this and find out: A very old road used to run along here! Older even than the Roman roads, says Matthäus – nice!
• We are walking along historical paths!
• Shortly afterwards, the rain that starts again, in line with the motto: ‘Enough of a break for you.’

• In fact, we are super relieved that today is our rest stage and that we reach our destination after 13 kilometres: Alençon.
• The hiking trail takes another strange detour through the town, but by now my willpower is no longer strong enough to resist and we are surprised to realise that some detours pay off!

• We walk through a magnificent castle, past a circular theatre and through very picturesque courtyards.
• It makes me wonder: how many detours have we skipped that would have been worthwhile? ‘The good thing is,’ says Matthäus in his usual dry manner, ’we’ll never know.’

• We find our accommodation after two attempts and a conversation with the Vis-a-Vis neighbour (‘We’ve booked a room with you.’ ‘What?! No, I don’t think so.”), as the address was given incorrectly.
• Then fall into bed, watch some climbing and good night.

Tuesday, April 9

There’s still some soup left!

• I forgot my mobile phone at our accommodation Le Verger (the ants) and our host lady kindly brings it to me this morning in Alençon (‘Ah’, she says on the phone, ‘no problem, I’ll be there in 5 minutes!’).

• First of all, our route continues through the beautiful little town, past the beautiful cathedral, which we take a look inside, and along the river, where we discover a wash house.

• Along small roads and then many forest roads, we once again head off through the forest until we come to a point where we have to cross the motorway.

• The subway is completely flooded, so we have to make a long diversions via small roads and a bridge.

• Ironically, a sign right in front of it wished us ‘Bonne randonée sur le GR 22’ – thank you too!
• We see donkeys! And I start dreaming again about what it would be like to hike with a donkey…

• We continue through the forest with the obligatory muddy patches until we leave the relaxed forest roads and follow small roads again.

• Slowly we get hungry and actually find a bench at a huge crossroads in the middle of the forest – with a table! We haven’t seen anything like it for a long time…

• We pass a lake that is once again privately owned and where everything that is fun is forbidden – especially swimming – which surprises us a little in the middle of the forest.
• Thankfully, thanks to the cool temperatures, we are not tempted to engage in illegal swimming activities.
• The roads on our map run in dead straight lines through the forest all day, which is why we assume that they will be forest roads until the end, but we are wrong: the forest road turns abruptly into a small path that leads steeply uphill and downhill – but dead straight – through the forest.

• At kilometre 25, this doesn’t exactly lift our spirits.
• So we are delighted when we finally stumble out of the forest and see a house – our accommodation, the “house on the edge of the forest”.
• Our hosts are quite surprised that we have come out of the forest; yes, they are on the edge of the forest, they say, but most of their visitors come from the other direction – by car, not on foot.
• Nevertheless, they know exactly what such tired hikers need and look after us very kindly and warmly: they immediately switch on a washing machine with our laundry (which really needs to be washed again) and even dry it for us and offer us warm soup, an offer we gratefully accept.

• From the bathroom and from the bed we can see the trees through the skylights and later the beautiful starry sky.

• Made my day!