July 2: still trying to reach Saint-Mihiel

Bains-les-Bains -> Mirecourt --> Poussay -> Nancy -> Frouard --> Marbache -> Rosieres-en-Haye (?) -> Appremont-la-Foret

I had my first dream! Even though it wasn't a very nice one and I woke up during the night a few times, the morning started with a hope that today is the day when I finally reach Saint-Mihiel and finally start walking with that stupidly heavy bagpack (but, hey, I wanted to feel what these guys felt, right..? So walking with a 30+kg backpack is the way to do it, right..?). I hoped to reach Saint-Mihiel by afternoon (that's called "being overly optimistic". Or "having foolish hopes").

The day started nice. Cows and sunrise were the first things I saw after opening my tent. Despite the heavy dream, a perfect place to sleep indeed. I ate the second half of the can that I started yesterday before sleep (that was the drill), packed my things and went to the road. It was starting to get frustrating - how can I manage to walk even from Saint-Mihiel to Niewport in 20 days? In less than 20 days if I can't even hitchhike in one day? Push. Push. Push. Push.

But it's so hot. Hot. Hot. Hot. So unbearably hot. Crawling through snow (800 meters in 1.5 hours) was more than a distant memory now. I hate heat. 18^oC is the maximum temperature for me and now I'm just glad I don't know the exact temperature...

I put my thumb up. Even though it was morning, there weren't that many cars. I met Koko and Pauline walking to the village. And then coming back. Few more minutes and three trucks where coming. Nice. Put my thumb up. I look at the numbers - Lithuanian. Two of the trucks were Lithuanian ones. They passed. The third one stopped - a French one. The driver's name was, I think, Jerome. Again, he said a place I had no idea of. We sat in his truck looking at maps - Jerome(?) was trying to figure out where he could drop me. It was the same for me - I didn't know these places so everywhere was fine. As long is in the direction of Saint-Mihiel - I'm in.

The road was beautiful and I once again was the opposite of "eyes wide shut".

Imagine driving here with motorcycle...

We drove in one small village, Darney, which had few monuments for the First World War.

"<...>
<...> DARNEY
MORTS POUR LA FRANCE
<...>"
(sorry, I'm not able to read the full inscription)

Darney might be small (area 7.92 km²), but it is an important place for the Czechs and Slovaks. During the Great War, a legion of Czechoslovakian volunteers had their camp here. Today near that site a monument for the Franco-Czechoslovak friendship stands (32 meters (104 ft 11.84 in) steel spire with three flags hoisted on smaller poles in foreground). Sadly, I don't have a photo of this monument. It is also in this place, that French President Raymond Poincare officially recognized the right of Czechs and Slovaks to have their independent state (reminder: Czechs and Slovaks were a part of Austro-Hungarian empire for some time. More so with Slovaks). In addition, there are some beautiful oak and beech forest around Darney. So the small place is definitely worth the visit.

I was dropped somewhere on the highway about 17km to Poussay. There was a crossroad with one way leading to Poussay another one - to Nancy. It was my dilemma where to go - I had no reasons to go to Poussay. It was just a stop on the way to Nancy, which was just a stop on the way to Saint-Mihiel. Nevertheless, curiosity won over the rational mind which calculated, that I will lose a lot of time going to Poussay.

I was walking the highway. Still wasn't used to the sun hitting me as if it was Sugar Ray Robinson on his winning streak and I was just, you know, the guy from around the corner accidentally at the ring during champion belt fight. And trees were still as scarce as national holidays.

A car stopped about 100 - 150 meters from me. I hurried up to it. I woman and her mother offered to give me a lift to Mirecourt. The car had an air conditioner, which for me was the divine revelation itself. The woman was on vocation. She was living by the ocean visiting her mother. They were such a nice family!

From Mirecourt, I walked to Pousay. It is yet another small village. As of 2014, 732 people lived on the 8.69 km² area. I didn't find any records about the activity during the Great War in the area. Just like many other villages, the area of this one was populated in Roman times (they built a road, which remains are probably still there). During the time, the name of the village evolved from Portus Suavis to what it is now. In 1720 a a boys' school was built, located in a house of the abbey. The school for girl was built in 1771 (so way before women got all other rights!).

I walked to a crossroad - both ways lead towards Nancy so there I started to hitchhike. A very nice couple - Nadine and Jackie (not sure that I wrote this right) - stopped. They were driving to visit their daughter in Nancy. It was so nice to speak to them in English with the minimal amount of trying to produce a French sentence that would have some meaning. I was so moved when they told me, that they don't usually stop for hitchhikers. They ran a marathon (42.2 km, or 26.21875 miles) and after that they went for a hike in the Pyrenees mountains to visit few tops. It was their way to relax after the marathon! I ended up admiring them very much.

They dropped me of at a crossroad and I took my walk across Nancy - the capital of Lorraine. My second stop was Marbache. The only question was how to get there.

Nancy might be big (well, compared to the villages I've seen so far) and beautiful, but the places I've seen weren't very pleasant.

View to Boulevard Joffre. Wanted to see it just because of its name

Trees somewhere down the street. Glad this isn't an image one can see often in Lithuania (trees are natural things here)

In September 1914, Nancy was one of the first places where German planes dropped leaflets as a mean of propaganda. I didn't manage to find a lot of information about Nancy during the war. Probably the biggest amount of information might be found in the book by Elizabeth Greenhalgh "The French Army And The First World War". Another great source - the journals that the Municipal Archives of Nancy offer each month (a part of Centenary 1914 - 1918). Sadly, they are in French, so I'm not able to give any summary on that, but you can find them here (there are some pictures of the town there too).

Nancy was a part of battles at the beginning of war (the Battle of Frontiers and the Battle of the Marne involved areas around Nany or the town itself). An elite XX Corps from Second French army had defended Nancy.

I walked zig-zaging small streets until I stumbled upon very beautiful church in French neogothic style (next to College - Lycee Saint Leon IX, in front of Place St Leon). For my eyes, this is a very beautiful church, but this is just one of many churches in France. It's not one of the few UNESCO monuments here.

Saint-Leon church. Built by architect Leon Vautrin in the 19th century in neogothic style. Dedicated to pope Leo IX. Church has two organs: the great organ (built by Cavaille-Coll in 1889) and the choir organ (built before 1860s, a certain author is unknown)

Most of French churches has amazing glass (after all, this is another distinguish feature of French church architecture).

Although I enjoyed the church (it wasn't that hot there), I needed to move. I wanted to get out of the town - it was almost 17:00 (5 p.m.) and I still had a lot kilometres to cover. This was the only time I decided to use public transportation. I walked to the Train station and was walking there for about 20 minutes trying to find an information post or a place where I could ask where to buy a ticket. Eventually I just went in SNCF office and asked for a person who spoke English and could help me to buy a ticket. For 1.9 euro I got to experience two-storey train to Frouard. From there I walked to Marbache. On my way to Marbache, I passed Pompey (gladly not the one in Italy because this would mean a big loop I made on my road).

At Marbache I hitchhiked. A very nice lady stopped and we had a lot of fun driving and laughing most of the time. She dropped me somewhere probably at Rosieres-en-Haye. From there again I walked towards the direction of Saint-Mihiel hitchhiking at the same time.

A man stopped - Hubert. He said a place which I again didn't knew. He spoke German (way better than me) and told me a lot about the war. His family was from a destroyed village. Often caught in crossfire during the Saint-Mihiel salient, many villages got destroyed. Because of the war, population of Meuse also declined and it hadn't recovered still (people are surprised to hear that codfish population haven't recovered ever since Canadian moratorium, but their fisheries numbers were way higher than the casualties of war and their reproduction is slow. If our population aren't able to recover a hundred years after, why do we expect other species population to recover after 23 years of only reduced catching but not a general ban?). Also, during the war many people fled these areas and didn't came back, therefore there is relatively lower population density here.
Hubert also told me that his father and grandfather were born in Germany (due to that territorial ping-pong between France and Germany). And that is the reason why there are people here, who are able to speak German.

Hubert took me to one of the destroyed villages even though it wasn't on his road. There were church ruins there (I sadly have no photos of it). Only parts of white walls were still standing with some blocks from the church laying around. That was all what was left from the old village. The new village was built in a new place next to the old one. And there are many places like that along the line... (I think the village was Flirey - a center of the Battle of Flirey and a place where four solders (copral Anthony Morange, soldiers Felic Baudy, Francois and Henri Prėbost Fontanaud) were killed for example (i.e. to scare all other soldiers who would not follow orders, induce harm on themselves to avoid battlefield, or would not go "over the top". They were only a few of the about 600 that French army executed. Hollywood movie "Paths of Glory" shows this part of war story) here. Flirey was completely destroyed during the war but fully rebuilt in 1923.

We came back to the car and Hubert dropped me off at Appremont-la-Foret. It was yet another destroyed and rebuilt village.

"PATRIA

_____________

APREMONT la FORET

A SES

JEROIQUES ENFANTS

MORTS POUR LA

FRANCE

1914 - 1918

_____________

ILS ONT BIEN MERITE DE LA PATRIE"

Some video of Apremont-la-Foret (the video is 0.5 the original speed).

The village found itself in crossfire between French and Germans, which had positions just a top of the near by mountain, which is now covered with forest. French were positioned further (there is a zoom in their position in the video).

After seeing the very small village surrounded by forests but not water, I looked for people to ask some water. Walking back and forth the same street, I finally asked a man for some water. He invited me inside his house where his wife filled my bottle. We started talking (in French!). They invited me to spend the night in their yard, offered me a warm and tasty dinner (an omelette of fresh eggs because they had some chickens! Yay!!!) and a shower. Alain and Marie Dumas (yep, distant descendants of the same Dumas) - such incredible people! We managed to communicate quite well and it all thanks to the modern technology - translators. And with their help, I also learned some more French. They told me that the way too hot weather isn't normal for this time of year - it's all because of the heat wave. I didn't have a cap to cover my head from the sun (I thought I won't need it and because of that, I got a bad burn on my nose). So they gave me a cap - a souvenir for me to remember them. It was such an honour to walk into them, to hear/read their stories.

And in the light of this goodness I was blessed with, I couldn't help but to think about all those people who died. Were they as good as the ones I met on my way? Or were they as the ones I didn't meet? Certainly, they were a mix of both... Yet somehow I can't help but think that the light of horrible events, circumstances show our true nature...

Until tomorrow.