Wisques is a village like many others in the Nord-Pas-de-Calais region of France – peaceful and idyllic. Here you can enjoy a traditional French meal and visit the town’s two Benedictine abbeys before embarking on this leg of the Via Francigena.

Today’s short walk is through the countryside and many small villages, any of which you can stop in to enjoy a coffee and get some lunch at the local cafés and bars. Passing through Wizernes, Helfaut, and Inghem, each village will provide an opportunity to explore what local life is like. Your stop for the night will be Thérouanne. Once a Roman capital and one of the richest bishoprics in Northern France, it is now just a small town.

Today you will leave Thérouanne and pass through the gently sloping countryside. Prepare to be awarded by sweeping views over crop fields. Halfway through today, you will pass through Enquin-les-Mines where you can grab a bite to eat. Your stop for the night will be Amettes, where you can visit the birthplace of Saint Benoît Labre, one of the patron saints of pilgrims, who died on the steps of a church in Rome after a life spent helping the poor on pilgrimages across Europe.

The walk today will be somewhat longer than the last two days. Although still mostly through the undulating countryside, you will be moving through larger villages and towns. This area once used to be a hive of activity when mining was the main industry here but it is much quieter now. Bruay la Buissiere, your stopover for the night, is a former coal-mining town. There is a large Art Deco style swimming pool that you may be able to go for a dip in, depending on the time of year.

Much like the previous days, the walk will be through a mixture of villages and open countryside with panoramic views as far as the eye can see over huge crop fields.

Acq, where you will be staying, is a small farming village just north-west of Arras, your final destination for this section.

A short walk today will take you from the farming village of Acq through rolling fields before you arrive into the town of Arras, which is the capital of the Pas-de-Calais department.

Arras is a popular tourist destination thanks to its splendid Flemish and Baroque architecture. While you are here, a must-see is the Town Hall and its majestic bell tower, which was listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2005.

Today we bid you adieu! As well as the town’s beautiful city hall and bell tower, you can also visit the Cathedral of Arras, first constructed between 1030-1396 and then destroyed during the French Revolution, and The Boves, a network of underground tunnels, built in the 10th Century, a whole 10 metres beneath the city.