Hitching France Pt. 4 – Lille to Saint-Omer

I spent two nights at the Gastama Hostel in Lille as the couchsurfing didn’t quite work out. The hostel had a nice bar and was in a good location with a lot going on in the evenings. Aside from drinking beers and meeting people I spent most of the time wandering around the city center and old fort. Lille has a nice feel to it. On my last day just before I was about to head out to the road, I was contacted by a host for my next stop: Saint-Omer. I hit the road around mid-day again and began the long trek outside of the city. I was in a northern part of the city and had to walk all the way to the southwest to my hitching spot which I found on the map. Along the walk I stumbled on a large street that had many vendors out and about in the road selling all sorts of things. There were also a bunch of shops along the street as well. As I walked about a block or two into the market it started pouring rain so I went into a second hand, discount sort of store, originally looking for a hat, though I came out with a nice long sleeve shirt and a pack of thick wool, fresh socks. Those turned out to be two great purchases. I got back out in the street, put my hood up and covered my bag as I continued on my way. No time to waste. The rain in the north seemed to go as quickly as it came and before long it had slowed to a faint drizzle. I paused under the canopy of an apartment building entrance near my hitching point and marked out my sign. Then it was to the roundabout where I would wait.

It rained off and on while I was out there and occasionally at the peak of the rain spurts I stood under the cover of some trees on the side of the road. The roundabout didn’t have great spots to pull over but it seemed to be the best location as all the roads that converged right there by the entrance of the road I needed to be on. I switched spots moving up and down the side of the road with my sign seeing if I could catch some eyes from different points. It took close to two hours before someone finally stopped. It was a woman probably a few years older than my mom and she was heading home from work to Saint-Omer. It was perfect. We talked the whole way about whatever came to mind. Our lives, families, how road work and large trucks seemed to plague the roadways (in France and my home state of Pennsylvania) – the works. I could feel my French already improving as certain thoughts became easier to form and I was still admiring the countryside which I found to be quite pleasant. Life felt pretty good and I was only heading to my second town by hitchhiking. When we arrived in town the lady gave my a quick ride around the town center, a quick detour by their own large cathedral which was under some restoration, and recommended that I stop by the gardens before I left. She dropped me off in the main square by late afternoon and the weather which came down on me as I was leaving Lille had subsided uncovering a beautiful sky and strong sun. I walked from the square back up around the cathedral to stand under it before making a loop out around some of the older parts of the town and by some interesting canals.

Eventually I circled back around the outskirts of the town as Saint-Omer isn’t very big and back to the other end of the square which I had left from. There were many small restaurants and cafes which ran around the square, so I decided to find a place to take a small late lunch. Once I realized the restaurants around the town center were a little more expensive than I wanted to pay, I found a side street which had a nice small café with food and drink at good prices so I took some time to rest and enjoyed a beer with pasta carbonara. I still had some time to kill before meeting with my host in town so I wandered around some more, checked to see if I could find any cool shops and rested up on a bench.