The Czechs.
For a brief moment in the 1990s, Saint-Mystère was a destination.
No one quite remembers how it started—an article in a forgotten travel magazine, perhaps, or a whispered recommendation passed along border checkpoints and backpacker cafés. What is certain is that, for a few years, strangers arrived. Not many. Never in groups. Just a slow trickle of curious visitors drawn to the village where no one spoke and every window seemed to be watching.
The ones in this photo came from the Czech Republic, not long after the fall of the Iron Curtain. They stayed a week, maybe two. Camped just beyond the orchard. Kept mostly to themselves. In the mornings, they wandered the lanes. In the evenings, they sat near the war memorial and sketched the rooftops.
Then they were gone. Like the others.
No one comes anymore.
And in Saint-Mystère, no one talks about that time.