Via Francigena 2 (Canterbury -- Dover)

Our first day backpacking on the Via Francigena was beautiful and amazing and had lots of struggles. We dealt with jet lag, we got lost, we were starving and denied service, we were exhausted.. and, in general, walking 22 miles not training our bodies because COVID was a lot. Our trip was supposed to begin a week earlier but we had to quarantine…everything happens for a reason and we are grateful because we may have never met the people we have met during the Cammino. Thank you for following along on our Via Francigena Adventure! Feel free to share your experiences or questions about the Camino! Follow me on Instagram for more content: @erikaplacer https://www.instagram.com/erikaplacer... _____________________________ Wednesday, June 29, 2022: Canterbury — Dover Oh my goodness. We got lost..twice. I enjoyed telling nick “I told you so” though haha. I told him the path was left but he thought it was straight and apparently I was right. It took us way off our path but David helped us find our way back to the path from Adisham Village. It was super long and painful but beautiful and fun at the same time. Nick cut his finger on a needle from his bag that was used to sew it up. We saw lots of babies (animals)!! We swung on swings and gave our feet a break from gravity making us feel heavy. Close to the end of this long day, we went to a pub (that advertised its home cooked food) to eat and the bartender said there was no food so we just got a beer. The next people that came in asked if there was food and the bartender said there is and he gave them a menu…I asked nick if he heard that and we were both shocked. He literally just denied us service. It was starting to rain and we had to find a hostel so we had to walk 1 more hour to get to Dover. We were in so much pain. Nick was grunting the whole way there. But luckily we found a place to sleep and run away from the rain. We were so exhausted and it was pouring that we decided not to go out and get food. We couldn’t sleep all night. I found a granola bar around midnight in my bag that we split. Then I did some yoga before I went to bed. Thinking back on it, it’s funny because we are all good now.. but ya..it was rough.