My day started with a visit to the cathedral in Metz to get the first stamp on my pilgrim's passport. That makes it more believable and as there are very few places to sleep the next few days I might need it (it's a document that officially identifies me as a pilgrim and may be used to get help or sleeping places from churches and monasteries). Then I stopped by the post office to send some stuff home.
Getting out of Metz and its adjacent villages took a long time, but the route did take the best options, through parks, along to water, etc. After Szy-Chazelles and some 10 km I finally got a significant bit of green.
Some time later, I got to Ars-sur-Moselle, where I managed to follow the wrong GR (again). After a long stretch of road, over some train tracks and two rivers, I realized I was wrong and turned back. Sigh, back along the road...
There followed a stretch of green, then a few more villages, and then I was finally in the forest. That was nice. I had wanted to sleep in Gorze, but the chalet there was so full I apparently couldn't even pitch my tent next to it. Good thing I called ahead to ask. So I had to leave the trail at Croix-St-Clément and walk over 6 km to the only campsite for kilometers around.
Thoroughly frustrating, because I was going away from the route and not making progress. I walked some 30 km in all, but got only 22 km closer to Rome.
I did get a treat on the long way to the campsite; a rather close-by bird of prey. I have seen a lot of them, from afar, sailing over the fields and vineyards, but this one was in the village and pretty close, flying overhead. Beautiful.
At the campground I had an interesting conversation with some guys from Romania, via Google translate, as only one of them understood a little English, and one spoke a bit of French. Which is quite hard to follow for me, when it is accented and imperfect. But we mostly understood each other, with some difficulty. The one who understood some English would type questions in Google translate in Romanian, then show me the English translation ('did your husband not want to come with you?' - wait wut, husband?); I would answer in English, and he mostly understood that.
They were trying to persuade me that Romania is a beautiful country (which judging by the pictures and video they showed me is true), and to visit there sometime.

Geschreven door Jewaontheroad