What started out as a nippy, misty morning blossomed into a rather warm day. The scenery remained beautiful, with fields, woods and villages. The highlight today was a “Tournoi International de Cricket” (International Cricket Tournament) in Liettres. Also notable were the dozens of shooters out hunting pheasants? Their bright orange fluoro clothes seemed to be everywhere! They included a number of young people… I doubt some of them are in their teens.
From the brochure:
“The Liettres Challenge 1478 is an annual international cricket competition held at the end of September in Liettres.
The event celebrates the world’s oldest authenticated testimony to cricket, found in a letter of grievances addressed to King Louis XI. It mentions a death during a cricket match on October 25, 1478, in the grounds of the Château de Liettres.
The tournament brings together two to three countries (depending on the edition) involved in the birth of cricket: France, Belgium, and England. Since 2017, the Agglomeration has been organizing the challenge within the castle grounds. The aim is to make this tournament a popular, family-friendly celebration centered around the Middle Ages and one of the most important cricket competitions in France.”
From our guidebook: This farming village’s most famous son is Benedict Joseph Labre (1748-1783), known as Saint Benoît, who at 16 took up the life of a mendicant pilgrim and visited shrines across Europe. In his last years in Rome he lived as a homeless man in the Colosseum, where his devotion was noted by locals who declared him a saint at his death. He is buried at the Santa Maria ai Monti church in Rome where he died, and his birth home is located here just below the church. He was canonized in 1881 and is patron saint of homeless people.
Morocco Food Tour 