Today’s walk was relatively short compared to the last few days, and it was the first day that didn’t involve trudging through snow. It was also the first fully sunny day. It was still very brisk this morning with temperatures in the low 20s and lots of frost and ice on the ground. This area has low rolling hills and so there’s lots of up and down, but generally not of hugely long duration. Last night’s hotel ended up being really nice, very simple faux wood floor room with view of the cathedral, comfortable bed, it all worked.

Ok, I’m going to rant a little about French villages. It is apparent that Zombies have attacked the French countryside, as you’ll find that most French villages are pretty vacant, as in, you won’t see a single living person. This means usually no cafe, bar, hotel, grocery or anything. Next you have the mildly populated ones that have some or all of these things. Most of which are closed, either it’s between noon and 5:00pm, its Tuesday, it’s not “the season” or they just don’t feel up to opening. This seems to be a universal problem in France as I caught part of a newscast this morning decrying the lack of even a single cafe in most French villages. Even in places like Paris, coffee shops are often closed until afternoon on Sundays and don’t open until after 10:00am in some cases. Any veteran of travel to/from or in France will tell you to do your best to avoid traveling on Sundays. For some reason, nothing works, and god forbid you have a flight out of CDG on Sunday, you’ll be very luck to make it to the plane not matter how early you are. There will only be one person stamping passports, and it may take a few hours for your turn. (If you don’t believe me on this, go ahead and try it!)

So what is causing the demise of the French village? I have a theory: I believe that French inheritance laws are to blame. For those unfamiliar, French law specifies that all of the children get a share of the real estate equally and cannot be disinherited. Now imagine, a family with a village house that is left to 3 siblings, but then one of those siblings passes away and now his share is owned by his 3 children. Now you’ve go 5 owners, no one wants to take responsibility or put any money in, so the house gets boarded up and forgotten about. I’m guessing at some point it will be seized for back taxes, but it will deteriorate since none of the five owners will want to put any money in, then if one of the other owners passes, his 3 children get his share, now you’ve got 7 owners…. You get the picture.