Day 3 / Pottes - Mortagne du Nord / 36 km

Woke up at 7.15. Went to the bathroom. Looked outside the window to check the weather. No rain. Went down an had breakfast.

At 9.00 said goodbye to Carine, Luc and their grandchildren. Stepped outside and started running. 

The plan was to reach Tournai, 16 km away, around 11.00. Arrived at 10.49 after a nice run along the Schelde river. In the beginning there was quite some fog which eventually cleared.

Strolled around in Tournai. Visited briefly the Cathedral, which is nice but undergoing renovation. The renovation is going very slowly as available budget is very limited. Got a stamp into my pelgrim booklet. Eventually bought 2 “rijst taartjes” as lunch and ate them in a pub with a cécémel, a genuine runners lunch. Tournai is nice but not a lot of people in the street and most shops were either closed since it was Monday or worse permanently closed (the region is economically not in good shape - I’m being polite now).

Around 13.00 I continued my run.

Next objective was to reach the Belgian-France frontier, roughly 14 km further upstream. The weather became sunny and somewhat warmer. After 10 km I wanted to take a stop in a small village where Google indicated to be 2 pubs. One was closed on Monday the other one was closed....permanently. It felt as if the village was in total permanent closure.

I decided to continue my run and passed the following pre-Schengen relic.

Finally I bought something to drink at the only shop open I could find. The owner was as charming as the facade of the shop. 

One cold Aquarius later I ran the last kilometer in Belgium and crossed the frontier into France. A small step for mankind a somewhat bigger step for this pelgrim.It will be another 3 months before I make the frontier crossing in the other direction.

Somewhat disappointed that the traditional frontier-friterie had been replaced by a sandwichbar. The Euroscepticals under the blogreaders can blame Europe. (Please remark it is a royal sandwich bar and not a presidential one. It is after all located in Belgium).

The last 6 km to Mortagne du Nord (I thought incorrectly the village was called Montagne du Nord - Google map should use a bigger font) were uneventful and eventually reached the Chambre Dhote around 15.30.

After meeting the owner and buying dinner in a local carefour it was time for the recurring pelgrims chores : washing the clothes you have been wearing, washing the body who have wearing the clothes and having a drink.

Bed nº 4 :

The rest of the evening I will do the better binge-watching and prep tomorrow’s stage to Le Quesnoy which is 45 km further. Le Quesnoy is slightly from the route as I could not find a sleeping place closer on the route.As I will do 45k  tomorrow I think it is wise to  plan an early sleep.

After 3 days running I’m still feeling ok. Although I’m trying to reduce speed I mostly tend to run around 10 to 10.5 km/hour, which I think is fine as my heartbeat is most of the time not higher then 140 bpm. 

Song of the day :Detlef Schrempf (live) - Band of horses

Lessons learned today :

- Mobile connectivity drops from 4g to Edge when entering France - I hope this will not be the average standard. 

- Friteries are no longer a certainty on the French-Belgian frontier.

T.

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