Picardie - Villiers L'hopital

I have been hitchhiking from Berlin to Frankfurt to Paris to Barcelona to Paris to Picardie to Vienna to Sofia and back home to Rotterdam. Why specifically these cities? Well, because in all of them I have friends which I had not seen for a long time. All my hitchhiking I have done in 1,5 months. About every hike and destination I write a short story on my blog. This time: Picardie!

After my stay in Barcelona, I decided to change landscapes and go visit family members in rural France. Well, saying France I actually mean Picardie. Picardie is way up in the north of the country.

There exist many French jokes about Picardie and its inhabitants. That is mainly so because the province is a tad backward and specialised in the growing of potatoes and sugar canes. People tend to be rough and not so delicate looking as in the southern parts of the country.

Anyways, let's start with my hitch from Barcelona to Picardie. An adventure in itself (as hitchhiking always is!). Spain is not known to be the easiest place to hithchike, especially not in Catalonia the part of Spain I was at. After having waited 6 loooong hours I finally managed to get a ride from 3 French students, who were terrified by the looks of a hitchhiker. Actually they were quite boring, so I cant be bothered to tell you more than that they drove me from Barcelona all the way to the French border.

At a gas station where I was dropped, I had a snack and noticed that it was getting late and dark. I was about to loose faith..... but then suddenly he arrived, who? "Chocolat"! Well at least I got to know him under that name. Chocolat was about as old as I am and had a French mum and a Pakistani dad, which explained his "Chocolat" like skin colour.

He turned out to be a brilliant companion and one of the nicest drivers that I ever had. He was a small time drug dealer in the North of France and had served only a bit of time in prison. But these are just details, as the guy was simply amazing. He smoked one spliff after the other, while sipping cheap bear from cans. He had the most amazing stories and the best thing was that his car was the biggest piece of garbage I have ever seen in my life! The car was literally burning from the inside and smoke came out of every possible hole. We were both completely black every time we went out for a break. However, it was fun, massive fun!

"Chocolat" drove me from the French border all the way to Paris, which was in total about 800KM. I arrived sometime in the morning, while Chocolat drove westwards into Bretagne. In Paris I decided to halt for a moment before hitchhiking the last 200KM to Picardie. I stayed at a good friend's place in Paris (thank you Stephan) and hitchhiked the next morning to Picardie.

There is not much to say about the village I have visited there. The name is "Villiers L'hopital", but don't expect even a Wiki page as the village is so minuscule that it does not even appear on maps. It is so tiny that even for the most necessary groceries (including bread, milk etc), you have to travel for at least 20 minutes by car. Anyways, I stayed there for a week, which was more than enough. Fortunately, I took some great photos of crazy looking cows!

Next time: Vienna!