Day 5

Awoke after a very deep sleep with legs aching but a sad realisation that this is our last big day. Much to our relief there was no wind however this was teamed with pouring rain. Not the best start but we made good progress to the next place hal mentions chevreville where he sleeps under the stars in a field because if is in glorious sunshine. Sadly 95 years later we were not so lucky.

Then on south to Monthyon "a quaint village right on top of a hill." If them billeted in a farm at the bottom of the hill sleeping under an apple tree. We found the farm but the orchard was blocked off. Pics to follow.

Meaux was hals next entry saying he crossed the river marne on "very quaint old bridges with mills built on them half way across the steam." He then explains that "sappers" or engineers were preparing to blow them up. We headed to meaux to find out more.

In the tourist information we discovered that the market bridge did indeed once have mills on it and was a great tourist attraction.we also discovered that on the 3rd of september 1914 in line with our diary the retreating english army blew up one of the arches of the market bridge in a successful attempt to slow the german advance down and with renewed resistance from english and french armies they prevented the germans reaching paris. We found this entry in a book...

Today the bridge still has one arch missing (on the left) where it was blown up...

Hal then billeted in a small village called vaucourtois "we arranged to live in a house the owner me which was starting to flee. We arranged to lock up the house and bury the key." However when we arrived a huge thunder storm appeared so after hiding under a hedge eating black berrys until the worst of the rain passed we set off to our last b and b near hals final stop on the retreat retal.

(Hiding under a hedge!)