Visé to Domaine de Wégimont: Day 120

Another hot, sunny day among trees and fields of maize on which I met another GR5 walker from Britain.

I decided to have breakfast in a traditional café on Visé's main street. In the street school children chatted as they walked to school. Workman were already busy digging up most of the main square, directing me to the other side of the road. In the café, the waitress ran (literally) in and out of the kitchen, serving breakfast to me and a lady with a laptop on her table, drawing beers and some clear spirit for the other men at the bar.

Leaving town I spotted a street market, stalls lined a side road selling clothes, quiches, cheese, garden plants and rotisserie chicken. Sadly I decided that a quiche would crumble in my tightly packed rucksack and the cheese would sweat unpleasantly in the weather so I settled for apples.

Street market in Visé.

As I climbed over a hill, the sun highlighting the green landscape. I felt guilty enjoying the beauty of the scene. While I was enjoying Belgium my wife was busy at home tending to our ageing dogs and rooting up ivy. Others would be prevented from such a trip by poorly knees or some other impediment. Still they would not be sweating in the heat with a 14 kilogram rucksack.

Dalhem was the first village on my route today where the GR5 deliberately climbed a hill into the old and picturesque settlement in order to go through a passage marked 'Wichet de la Rose'. Must be a story behind it. After I had climbed down a flight of steps to road level I noticed a patisserie opposite where I bought a bottle of orange juice and a "tarte á fraize" to consume on a piece of concrete nearby. The tarte was for sentimental reasons, my wife and I bought a couple between punctures on a cycling trip in France long ago.

A little later I caught up with another British GR5 hiker called Ray ( exrayraylejog.home.blog ). We walked for a little way, chatting together before parting in the village of St Remy (after missing the café mentioned in the guidebook).

St Remy church, typical of many in the area, although as the GR5 tended to slip between settlements sometimes I only saw the spires.

My day continued on quiet roads, paths, cycle paths, farm and forest tracks. For a few kilometres I followed a wooded valley. The sunlight, filtered through the leaves of the trees, produced a lemony light which my camera failed to reproduce. Horses and bicycles passed me, day and dog walkers came the other way, bonjours all round. 

The trees were a welcome reprieve from the heat I experienced, exposed to direct sunlight on tracks through fields of maize. Drinking lots of water was essential, my lack of normal urination warned me I was becoming dehydrated. In addition to my water bottle I filled my platypus (basically a heavy duty plastic bag). Unfortunately when I filled it in the bathroom light this morning it glowed a faint, fluorescent green. I added a water purification tablet to kill anything that might be growing in it. Having not yet become sick after drinking most of it I am hoping that treated any problems.

Welcome shade under trees.

Exposed to sunlight on a cycle track through fields of Maize.

I am now camped at a site in the Domain Provincal de Wégimont, beside an area of parkland with a lake, smokey barbeques and a chateau (not open to the public). There is a formal garden with low brown hedges, possibly boxwood that has been afflicted by a disease that it is killing it off. I am contemplating plans for an ambitious day tomorrow.