Monday morning blues

First words from Madame this morning " I don't get it. Why do people do these walks? Why do I have to keep to a time table every day?". Kind and gentle Monsieur replies " We walk to find ourselves Cherie". Breakfast is at 0730 when I will be taking the bags dowstairs." And so started day 4 of "Sometimes we walk".

We stayed in a second class place in the middle of nowhere last night; one class in hotel accommodation and the other class in a 19 bed dormitary-Gite D'Etape. But we all ate the same 4 course set meal: vegetable soup, beef and pasta, cheese selection (Auvergne) and prune pudding. Madame turned her nose up for courses 2 and 4. But we ate it all and slept well. Madame was not a happy breakfast eater either. Yesterday's baguette toasted is not good!

But we had a great day with a straightforward walk and we found our new home about 2:30 ie 6 hours including lunch stop.

Again there were plenty of other walkers around all day. Yvonne was keen to observe that 'nice Swiss man' is now teamed up with 'nice Spanish girl'. In the morning as we left St Albans, the Swiss was on his own but from lunch things were different.

Yvonne can now proudly announce that she has passed 5 pelerins so far and although one foot is playing up needing tlc, she had a better day today. Yvonne has walked 97 kms so far, including pit stops and a few sight seeing deviations. We also passed a pelerin and his donkey today.

There was a strong and growing wind today-as happens in France at this time of the year when the temperature climbs, the wind gets up and the big storms arrive. According to the News reports, 19 Departments are on storm alert. The bad weather; rain, hail wind are a little to the West of us, so far.

So having taken our wet weather gear out of our packs to lighten the load, they will be back in packs tomorrow as we hope for the best.

And a last call from Randall. Fete de Papa in France has passed without any calls from abroad. Out of sight and out of mind?

 

 

 

 

 

A Struggle for day 3

You will complete a very picturesque day as you cross the Margeride Plateau. With vast grassy plains and moors of broom and heather this part of the trail is relatively easy going. Amongst the most interesting sights are St Roch Chapel or L’Hospitalet du Dauvage Chapel.  The theory.

 

Feeling like this is all a bit much? Getting a bit bored with one foot after the other? How slowly the scenery changes when you are crossing it at 3 kms per hour.

After the climbing of yesterday, today promised to be relatively flat. But over 6 kms longer which for us makes the difference between finishing at a useful 4 pm or later at 5.15 pm. It was a good day with the terrain easy and taking us through fields, forests and villages. Just a little long.

 

Yvonne and Randall had quite different views on the cows around here.  Lovely animals or lovely steaks?

 

 

So now we are tucked up in our gite d'etape at Les Faux feeling quite tired. We also had sun all day today and at nearly10pm it is still light outside. In other words we feel quite buggered.

There was moment of panic today when Yvonne had finished her water as we were expecting a water tap in the next hameau which we could not find. However all was saved when we found a well at a little recreation park, 300 metres down the road. The best water Yvonne has tasted.

There seemed to be heaps of people on the walk today. There was almost no part of the day when we could not see other pelerins. We all exchange pleasantries but it will be a while before we can exchange the minutia covering every topic going that only the French can conceive. And the subject never seems to leave food and drink for very long as we discuss the country, the very healthy looking cattle about us, the plants, trees and the insects.

The French ladies young and old are all ready for a chat with the foreign man I am travelling with as his good French language continues to impress them.

We have enjoyed another good walk of 26 kms and have earned a good rest.

Until the next time.

Second day is done

This was going to be an easy day, one of the easiest this walk. To quote our friends World Expeditions "Most of the day is spent crossing the valley. You will pass by Rochgude where a descent to the river at Monistol will follow. It will be a relatively easy walk to Sauges which is famous for its mushrooms. (4-5hrs)"

Not quite. The day was fine with just a hint of rain maybe. It was a good descent to the river at Monistol but that took a fair while-almost 3 hours. Then a climb out of there to the plateau top was fairly demanding-one of those walks where it continually ascends and where it is hard to predict when it will flatten out.

But that said, it is after all a lot about the people you meet and up until now we had only met French people. Some very interesting and wonderful people. Today we chatted with a young Swiss man who was taking a week's break before starting a new job.

We had our lunch just off the track in much the same fashion as yesterday and then just had to take a break just 3 kms from Sauges to try a tarte myrilles and a drink with syrups of choice made from local fruits recommended to us by other pelerins. While enjoying our tarte myrilles and syrup we chatted with two other pelerins from Belgium. That gave us a last kick into Sauges where we arrived not long after 4 pm. Just over 7 hours with lunch and two drink breaks.

As you would expect, we are starting to find the same people around us at various times. People with the same walking rhythms. Some just to Conques like us and others in the the big one to Santiago de Compostella.

 

And we arrived in better shape than yesterday! Already feeling fitter.

 

 

And ask us about the dinner we had in Sauges after our rest

 

 

One down ten to go

An overcast morning ahead-just perfect for walking. We ate breakfast at the hotel; it saved looking for cafes etc. Then we parted ways from the luggage and after buying a few things for lunch we were off. 0840 hours

All in all it was a long but fairly easy walk. After a tough climb up out of Le Puy were we generally walking flatish cross country. We were in tune with nature,  observing the many different snails, cuckoo birds and many other small birds.  But then towards the end of the day it got tougher again as we had to drop quite quickly down through the forest to enter St Privat D'Allier. It was steep, rocky and damp underfoot which made it difficult for Yvonne especially as she was getting quite tired. 24 long kms and it was good to have that one under our belt.

The views were stupendous all day and photographs were unable to appreciate the more than 300 degree panoramas.   It was clear that there had been plenty of rain as forested tracks were often little running streams but we had no problems with the weather.

We had our picnic lunch alongside the track with about 8-9 kms to go.

 

 

St Privat D'Allier has a great little setting but time has past it by in many ways so it is probably

the pelerins comme nous who are keeping it going.

The more things change the more they stay the same

0940 Thursday morning and all is well. A travelling day today planned with plenty of room around timings. We had had our French breakfast (croissant/coffee) and found the boulangerie where we could later buy a sandwich to eat on the train due to leave Lyons for Le Puy at 1206 hours.

Too restless to start a good book so flicked on the TV to watch the French 24 hour channel (in English). I noted the status of the Air traffic control strike on at the moment and wonder/hope if it will be out of the way in a couple of weeks time when Yvonne is to fly out to Scotland. But then hey! Holy Toledo Batman! What is this about the trains going out today nationally in sympathy.

Time for action – now I have something to do! I went to reception to find out more. Yes says madam; “Greve National”. Yes says madam checking computer, “Your train to Le Puy has been cancelled”. Best thing to do is to head to train station to see if any replacement buses are running. Immediately we head off in the taxi.

Taxi quote from Lyons to Le Puy en Velay is about 300 euros. Horror enters Scottish Yvonne's eyes. This look increased when taxi driver remarked that perhaps best bus option is from the second Lyons train station i.e. not where we are heading but where we were! Great!

But you should not think that things around strikes in France have remained the same since the Revolution.

All appeared to be relatively quiet at the station. Long lines of TGV trains were sitting still in the yards but the SNCF Inquiry desk was well organised and in just a few minutes we were advised to take a train to St Etienne (going our way) which was leaving in about 10 minutes and when at St Etienne take a bus which will arrive in Le Puy en Velay around 4 pm. Happy pilgrims again

At St Etienne we found a nearby brasserie where we ate our sandwich (in France there are no problems with you bringing and eating food into the place providing you buy a drink or two). And I had time to write up our pilgrimage.

Our bus duly arrived, suddenly it filled up with boomer age pilgrims to be, also heading for Le Puy and we spent a lazy afternoon driving beside the Loire. Beautiful green countryside. Radio Nostalgie in the background. Even Yvonne remarked that this was a bonus.

In Le Puy a late afternoon storm drove us into a nearby bar after we had checked out the cathedral and bought our Creanciale for the walk. An excellent meal in the hotel and we rested in good spirits after what could have been quite a disastrous day.

Training session in Lyons

So we had enjoyed a re-orientation day and adjusted our body clocks. Time for some final training for the walk due to commence Friday. Off out of the hotel bright and early at 9 am for a fairly ordinary croissant and a reasonable coffee. Yesterday we had clocked up about 14 kms on foot and today would turn out to be slightly more at 16-17 kms. Not too bad.

We crossed over city and then the Saone river before taking a climbing test up to Notre Dame de Fourviere cathedral. An impressive place with good views. Not much time hanging around as our lunch booking at the Daniel and Denise bouchon awaited on the other side of both rivers and in the Part Dieu distict of the city-about 45 mins on foot.

Along the way, we felt duty bound to stop for a refreshing Perrier menthe in Vieux Lyons and the obligatory pic for this blog. At the bouchon we thoroughly enjoyed our training 3 course lunch, complete with wine but then it was time to head back into town and our visit to the Musee Des Beaux Arts.

After the visit at the museum we felt that the training day objectives had been achieved so we headed home for a rest before dinner. On the way we finally found a copy of Miam Miam Do Do which is the obligatory reference book for pilgrims heading along the GR 65 in France towards Santiago de Compostela. And Yvonne found yet more embroidery kits to add to her collection-Poule en champs and Canard en champs.

 

Our training was now complete. Tomorrow we take the train to Le Puy en Velay. Weather wise it was a rather warm mid 20s day today and there is every indication that after a rather poor Spring here, we are about to have a run of hotter weather.

All set to go

We are almost set to start the walk from Le Puy to Conques.  We did do a bit of plagiarizing from some of the commercial offerings and we had to make a change or two in our stage legs to get the accommodation we were after and sorting out booking arrangements.  But now it all looks good.

We have put in a fair amount of walking training even if the arrival of winter weather and a couple of weeks tripping around the country to bid farewells to family interrupted the training program somewhat.  We are not expecting an easy walk and the first two days or so look fairly challenging terrain wise.  But once we have those first couple of days under our belts, things will settle down.

The weather in Europe has been indifferent but we are hoping that it will continue to improve before we head off on stage 1 from Le Puy to St Privat D'Allier next Friday 14 June.  After all, the total length of this 10 stage walk is just over 200 kms and with a rest day along the way combined with some support from the weather gods, it should be a very pleasant experience.

And not at all like the last time we started a walk on the GR65 when we were drenched through on the first day, even casting more than a sideways glance at one of these dry stone 'cazelles' for some respite.