Day 309 – EU – France [Fougerolles to Vesoul]

07/02/21

40km

  From Fougerolles (France) to Vesoul (France)

Europe

Rain, beautiful roads and villages and yet another warm and awesome welcome in the town of Vesoul

Today felt like it was going to be a very good day from the start. Yes it was rainy. But I would be running on small secondary roads all the way to Vesoul, passing by a few very pretty villages. I am getting to discover a region I have never crossed before. Churches’ domes here have a particular shape and village after village show the same, very pretty structure. I also notice a lot of well preserved public outdoors wash-houses from days gone by.

The landscape was gently hilly and green, many fields of cherry trees, quite a few horses too. About 10km before Vesoul, a cyclist greeted me: Etienne, journalist from the Vesoul Presse. I am very glad as it seems my tracker (which is on my homepage) is getting more accurate. I always assume it has a 5km delay or so. But today (and yesterday) it was accurate enough for people to follow me and meet me on the way. Good! Etienne cycled by my side till Vesoul, asking me questions and telling me tales of the region.

Top left Etienne the journalist from Vesoul, bottom left Florian giving me his drawing and bottom right the Vesoul Running Cub

Later in the afternoon, I met with the marathon running club of Vesoul, of which Etienne is also a member. The president, Claude, was here and he was celebrating his 75th birthday today! Quite a figure, really, he has run literally dozens of marathons himself and is still planning to run, for his last one, the Classic marathon of Athens in Greece. I hope he succeeds. We spent the afternoon chatting, little 10 y-old Florian offered me a drawing of his own and I got gifted the club’s shirt. We stayed together till the 6pm curfew – we could have spent more time together if it had not been for the stringent timing. How energising to meet like minded people who are so understanding, supportive and enthusiastic about the journey. For the solo-runner that I am, it feels like getting my batteries fully recharged!

Check my daily run GPS data on or

Here is the map of today’s run: