Blanche Église

16 June 2015:  Today's hike was complicated.  In the first place, the route from Brioncourt to Blanche Église (where we had reserved places in a gîte d'étape) was long – more than 30 km.  Moreover, long stretches of that route were paved roads – not exactly our favorite surface!  Finally, we needed to buy food for tonight's dinner and tomorrow's breakfast at the gîte – and there was only one place on our route to buy food: Vic-sur-Seille.

Our first step in sorting out those complications was to accept the generous offer of a ride from Brioncourt to Grémecey by Claude, our host at Le Clos des Pommes.  That trimmed six, mostly paved kilometers off the day's itinerary.  

We then walked 14 km from Grémecey to Vic-sur-Seille.  We enjoyed that hike!  In addition to the traditional forest trails, the GR5 took us through the open land of beautiful rolling countryside.  

We arrived in Vic-sur-Seille shortly after 1:00 pm and found – surprise! surprise! – that the town's little grocery store was closed until 3:00 pm.  A café was open, as was a museum devoted to Georges de la Tour (who was born in Vic-sur-Seille), so we had a pleasant break, but it was past 3:30 when we'd finished shopping.  With 12 km still to go (and much of it paved road), we decided to hitchhike to Blanche Église.

We have the gîte to ourselves this evening.  Dinner – purchased from the shelves of that little grocery store in Vic-sur-Seille – was certainly below the culinary standards of some places where we have dined, but we're enjoying a cosy evening in this modest place.

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Claude generously drove us to Grémecey to start our hike:

Looking back to Grémecey:

A curious stone encouraged us!

Sunflowers, not yet in bloom:

Beautiful Lorraine countryside:

Today's forest:

A waving field of wheat: 

A clever idea in Vic-sur-Seille:

The gîte d'étape in Blanche Église: