Road to Home 2023 Day 18: Trefcon - Seraucourt-le-Grand

Le Chemin ce n'est pas le Club Med

- sign posted frequently in pilgrim hostels on the Chemin de Compostelle / Camino de Santiago

Back before Arras, my Canadian friends took a different route from mine and stayed at the castle of Villers-Chatel. The owner, Jean, is a veteran pilgrim himself, which is why he hosts pilgrims in his castle, asking only for a donation toward expenses in return. When I met them again in Arras, my friends reported that the castle, though it looked grand on the outside, was not so glamorous on the inside, at least in the part provided to pilgrims. This may well be explained considering Jean's rating system for pilgrim accomodations, which my friends reported to me.

1 star = a roof

2 stars = a roof and running water

3 stars = a roof, running water, and hot water

4 stars = a roof, running water, hot water, and a bed

I might add that as a logical continuation of this rating system, a 5-star pilgrim accomodation would also have sheets and towels - a rare luxury on the Camino de Santiago, though often provided on the Via Francigena, where costs are proportionately higher. Mostly, walkers carry their own microfibre travel towel and sleeping bag, or liner: like a sleeping bag but consisting only of sheet material, and therefore lighter to carry (especially the ultra-light silk ones).

Now by the above classification, last night's accommodation would be awarded four stars, while tonight's would be three.

The pilgrim apartment at Trefcon is part of a working farm which doubles as a tourist attraction offering river kayaking and horse-riding excursions. It's fine but needs a little maintenance - the plumbing and kitchen appliances, in their current state, should have come with instructions 😆. Like an old car, they had their quirks and required various tricks to get them to work. Between us, we managed to discover their secrets and survive the evening without being scalded by the shower, burning our fingers lighting the gas stove, or having to resort to pouring buckets of water down the toilet to flush it!

This evening in Seraucourt, on the other hand, I was involved in a double case of double-booking. I thought I had booked the caravan the campground provides for pilgrims, and was quite looking forward to it, until Roy and Sue told me they had booked it. I checked again and realised I had not actually received a confirmation reply to my email, sent several days ago. I went onto the campground website and the caravan still appeared to be free, so I booked it and immediately received confirmation. They must have two pilgrims caravans, then, I thought!

Some time later the campground sent me an email apologising and saying that the caravan was already booked. Sue and Roy had called in the meantime, and the pilgrim caravan was reserved for them! So I called the number provided for the other pilgrim accomodation in the town, the municipal gîte, described in the book as trés rustique. The man in charge excused himself while he checked his records, and then confirmed that the gîte was available. That evening at dinner, Guy and Chantal, two French walkers who were also staying in Trefcon, told me they would also be staying at the municipal gîte. Great, I thought, I'll have company! 

But when I arrived in Seraucourt at noon - having taken the shorter route that does not detour into Saint Quentin - and was shown to my room, I realised something was wrong - we couldn't all be staying there! It's basically an old wash-house for boaters on the canal, a small lean-to shed containing two sinks, a campstove, a toilet stall and a shower stall. There are a couple of mattresses leaning up against the wall, and when you want to go to sleep, you put them down on the floor in the kitchen area. Trés rustique, but it's free! If you think of it as a sort of tent with brick walls, electricity and indoor plumbing,  it sounds quite luxurious. And besides, the "back garden" is fabulous - a public park by the river, with plenty of picnic tables!

My "back yard"

The "dining room"

Apparently Guy and Chantal had booked the place several months ago, and the volunteer who keeps the key had evidently forgotten! 

Perhaps when they called last night to confirm, he thought they were me... or that I was one of them... In any case, when they arrived in town, a couple of hours after I had moved in, or "installed myself", as the French say, they called him and he said.... er, there seems to be a problem!

When we all met up for a beer at the bar just across from the gîte, they appeared a bit miffed; so I showed Guy the gîte, to allow him to see what luxury they were missing.😄

The man in charge said he would find them an alternative accommodation, and I'm sure it will be less rustique than mine! So I don't feel too bad about unintentionally stealing it from under their nose. 

Patrick and Elaine, on the other hand, had booked a room - in the wrong town! French place names are often repeated, and they had got the wrong village, about 400 kilometres away! But, apart from not getting their money back on that room, their story also ended well: Elaine, who arrived first, just walked into the campground and they gave her a cabin with two beds at a reduced rate.

This mix-up about accommodations was pretty much the only noteworthy event of the day. Other than running into Ross, an Englishman who is walking from London to Rome. When he came along I was standing talking to two people out for a stroll in the park just before Seraucourt. They stopped me to ask where I was coming from, where I was going, what the name of the route was... they had walked the Camino de Santiago from Le Puy, the most common starting point for people crazy enough to want to walk all the way across France before they walk all the way across Spain. They were really excited to hear about the Via Francigena and interested in doing it, and they asked me if there was a guidebook, so I gave them mine. My French one, I mean. I had ordered the Topoguide to the GR145/ Via Francigena before the English-language guide published by Cicerone came out, and because I really like the maps in the series, published by the French Fédération Gran Randonnée. But I have hardly been using it, as the Cicerone guidebook and the GPS track have been enough. So I gave it away - Volume 1 ends in Reims anyway, only  a few more days away.

I then walked the rest of the way into Seraucourt with Ross, where we parted ways as he was going further today. In Seraucourt I also met two Dutch walkers who are cycling to Rome and walking to Canterbury  - at the same time! How are they managing this? By an ingenious method: they first ride their bicycles southward, to the end of the day's walking stage, then lock them up, leave them there and walk back to the beginning of the stage, where their camper van is parked. They then drive the van back southward to where their bicycles are, cook their dinner and sleep in the van before repeating the procedure for the next stage on the following day. Thus doing away entirely with the need to search for accommodations that takes up so much time and energy. Ingenious! Only the Dutch could come up with such a scheme! 😄

Tonight's accommodations: Gîte Municipal in Seraucourt-le-Grand, très rustique but free!

Trefcon - Seraucourt-le-Grand 20 km (without passing through Saint Quentin)