shewhomust | Losing the north*

There were times on last autumn's trip when I felt I was losing my handle on France: I tend to assume that I know how to find the things I want, where to stay, where to eat... When our night on a trout farm was followed by a failure to find any lunch, self-doubt set in. Other factors may have been involved - things were noticeably more expensive than the previous year (not just because our pounds bought fewer euros, the actual prices in euros seemed higher, and bought less) - and we still had a good time, but I was disappointed in my inability to read the townscape and find the café...

Stenay had an attractive arcaded square, but no café visible, and although we saw people carrying bread, we couldn't track down the bakery, either. I was quite tempted by the beer museum, but they offered nothing more sustaining than beer, so, maybe another time.

By the time we reached Mouzon, the sun was high and hot. Through the Porte de Bourgogne, the old gate in the ruins of the town wall, the main street led down to the Meuse. Down by the river,

durham_rambler froze, camera at the ready. Following where he seemed to be looking, I saw a kingfisher arrive in a flash of blue, land on one of the old boats and take off again. Meanwhile

durham_rambler, oblivious to this, was photographing a large fish. You can't but feel warmly to a place where you've seen a kingfisher, even if the locals tell you, apologetically, that no, there is no café in town at all, there used to be one but it closed last year. "We must come back to Mouzon," we told each other, "when it's open." We might even visit the felt museum (according the the Michelin guide, they have a yurt).

Eventually we found a bakery (it may have been in Sedan) where we bought pastries which we ate on a park bench, and then stopped at a café by the canal in Pont-à-Bar. Fortified and refreshed, we consulted the hotel guide, and identified a possibility well located for a good day of walking and exploration the next day.

It wasn't until we were within twenty miles of Monthermé, following the great wooded loops of the Meuse, that I realised we'd been here before - well, of course we'd been here before, this was the area in which we had formulated the plan of following the Meuse, Monthermé was the place with the magnificent school building. It would be the perfect base from which to explore. There was just one more obstacle to overcome: there was no sign of life at the hotel. The guide had warned that the restaurant was closed on Sunday evenings, but not that, although the hotel might in theory be open, there would be no-one there to let us in.

Undeterred, we returned to the bed & breakfast we'd passed at the entrance to the town, booked ourselves in there to a charming but tiny room, and went for a soothing walk by the river. A family of swans accompanied us, the cygnets almost grown, their brown feathers giving way to white. This would do nicely.

ETA missing footnote: * perdre le nord translated by my Collins Robert as 'to panic, go to pieces'. Losing my religion, in fact.