Day 6: Charleville to Sedan — another side of the Meuse

It’s incredible how the people we know and meet affect our perception of a place. Before yesterday, we already had one connection to Charleville-Mézieres—our friend Marie-Pierre, whose numerous talents include puppeteering, studied at the famous Institut International de la Marionnette here—but we will also never forget the incredibly warm welcome we received from our Airbnb host, Isabelle. Her little loft was wonderful, and her hospitality was heartwarming.

So we left the city with a big smile, after lingering over a late breakfast and delightful conversation in her cozy courtyard. The forecast was for a warm, sunny day, but we had planned for a short day today, knowing that afterward, we would have two solid days to get to Verdun.

South of Charleville, the Meuse flows through less confining geography but meanders just the same. The countryside here is bucolic in the extreme—lots of mixed farmland, cows, goats, forested bluffs, storks and hawks soaring overhead...

We arrived in Sedan at about 2:30, a ride of just 28 kilometres. Our Airbnb here is also lovely, and I write this on a little patio perched over a courtyard. After settling in, we set off to explore the town, famous for its castle, which is supposedly the largest in Europe. We were too late (and too warm) to tour the castle, but we were able to wander around outside the walls, and I made a game of trying to take pictures that didn’t have any cars in them. We walked quickly through the street blocked off for a beer festival, something that might have interested me at one time, but one look at the huge crowd of half-drunk Frenchmen emittting a truly prodigious cloud of cigarette smoke, with a loud, mediocre rock band at one end, made me realize how much more I prefer to enjoy my beer sitting quietly with friends, or simply writing a blogpost on a quaint patio...

Sedan

Le Château-Fort (a very small part of it)

Life could be worse