Early Start

 

Day 15

     We got up early and were on the way by 6:30.  It was great to beat the heat.   A stiff climb out of town and the rest of the day was reasonably level.  There were very few hamlets and churches.  We typically pass through three or four small villages with big churches. The churches are always open and very cool, and we stop to cool down and marvel at the art. There were no churches today, besides the one in the hamlet where we are staying.  

     We enjoyed meeting new pilgrims today.  One young couple were from Sweden.  Laura is from the US and spent time living in Port Townsend.  Hans is from Sweden. They met on the Camino and have done it 6 times.  They are doing the long route from Le Puy this time and will get married in Santiago in October when they get there.  We are invited to the wedding if we can make it in time!

     Our gite tonight is very artsy and funky, run by a Swiss German transplant named Esther. Her niece helps her run the place.  We were joined by two German pilgrims who were willing to use English and we learned about their six Camino trips.

Rest Stop

 

Day 14

      Partly because of exhaustion and partly because of lack of reserved accommodation, we decided to take a day off. Since we are staying in a small city, we had plenty of services to attend to our needs. (Figeac)  We enjoyed a lazy get up and stocked up on food for tomorrow’s journey.  This is yet another historic town with plenty of tourists.  We took a long afternoon nap in our hot third floor room, and found dinner at a local food festival.  We will get an early start tomorrow to try and beat the heat.

1/6 of the way

 

Day 13

     We had breakfast by ourselves, even had to push the button to start the coffee.  Our host likes to sleep in.  It was a hot day, but fortunately it was cloudy and kept the sun from beating down on us.  We had a quick downhill and then uphill before it leveled off for much of the day.  We had lunch by a cow pasture and pond enjoying a sandwich we had purchased in the morning. 

    We caught up with a large French family (4 girls and 2 boys) we had shared an evening with a few nights ago.  They have a van and do little sections of the trail.  One of the parents drives the van ahead and then hikes back to meet the family.  They lived in Iowa for a few years because he works for John Deer. We said goodbye as they are heading home.

     Tonight we are in the small city of Figeac and staying in a small hotel.  The city is another old city with lots of narrow streets and plenty of tourists.  We spent the evening walking the streets (as if we needed a walk!)

     Sometime today we passed the 250 km mark which is 1/6 of our total miles.  At this rate we will need the total three months to finish the walk!  But everyone tells us that the trail will easier and we will be able to pick up the miles.

 

Day 12

    Today was a workout!  Climbing out of the Conques valley was pretty brutal, only to be blasted with heat for the day.  Our walk to our gite was an uphill grind in a furnace. Thankfully, Esther’s blisters didn’t bother her much.

The highlights of the day were the pilgrims we met.  After a week and a half on the Camino, we had not met a single native English speaker.  Today we stopped at a picnic table at the top of an exhausting hill climb, and within minutes, five English speakers joined us, 3 from America and two from England.  Will, a high school English teacher from London walked with us for two hours. We covered a lot from COVID’s effect on students to British and American politics.  We also met Kelly from Los Angeles who was originally from Holland, MI. We had briefly met at the Cathedral in Le Puy the first morning.  Because of time constraints, she will be leaving the rest of the walk in France and jumping ahead to the Spanish portion of the Camino.

     We were apprehensive when we arrived at our gite. A DIY camping van conversion was in progress by the entry, and picnic benches by the road seemed to be the guest table.  It turned out very comfortable, and we were the only guests for the night.  Dinner was great and host very helpful.

Conques

 

Day 11 - Conques 

       After finishing our bowls of coffee (yes, bowls - to dip your toast) and saying goodbye, we headed down the hill and then up the hill and then down the hill, etc.  We are looking forward to some flatter landscape in a few days.  

     The village of Conques is very popular and famous.  They say that it was the model for Disney’s Beauty and the beast.  The steep hillside village streets have no vehicles.  You almost expect Bellle or Guston to pop out a door.  The medieval architecture is well preserved.  We were lucky to find a private room that overlooks the town. A bit of a splurge for pilgrim, but very reasonable by US prices.  The town has many tourists as well as occasional pilgrims.

     The room did not offer dinner so we had or second restaurant meal of the trip - excellent wild boar stir fry and sausage and mashed potatoes.  You can guess who had what.  We ended the evening with a light show at the church that highlighted a very famous sculpted mural above the door of the church depicting the eternal states of humanity with Christ the Judge.  The evening was so much different than our usual night as it was a romantic setting with just the two of us.

Sandals to the Rescue

 

Day 10 - Le Soulie

   In the coolness of the morning, the fairy town was even more magical.  We picked up our lunch sandwich from the local butcher and headed out. Esther developed another blister and our host suggested wearing sandals as she had walked the entire Camino in sandals.  With some trepidation, Esther donned her sandals 

and started walking.  She ended up walking the entire 13 miles in sandals and her blisters did not hurt.  PTL! 

   The heat of day was pretty overwhelming, especially in the afternoon.  There were only a few spots of rugged terrain.  Most of the way was quiet countryside road or path. The gite tonight was very unusual.  It is a roadside guesthouse with scattered buildings amongst overgrown vegetation.  Our first impression was of a hippie commune.  A few scattered buildings hidden in thick overgrowth, restroom facilities 30 yards from our room, an outside eating area covered with tarp.  

     Several of the guests were pilgrims from previous stops.  A new young man who teaches English here in France jumped in to help translate.  It ended up being a very memorable evening with the older gentleman host facilitating a share time for everyone at the table to share their Camino story.

Estaing Castle

 

Day  9 - Estaing

    We began our day with renewed optimism for our 13 mile day.  We are still in a mountainous region so there is a lot of up and down.  We seem to go over a hill each time we go from one town to another.  By noon we made it to Espallion, a small city that was filled with tourists.  We are getting good at sidewalk lunches, we can both get filled up for less than 10 Euros. We saw Claire walk by so we yelled at her.  She is the only one we have met that is going all the way to Santiago. Her English is very limited and our French is none existent, yet we have formed a strong connection.  She is a devout Catholic and stops at all the chapels and churches.  We sometimes walk in close proximity but she prefers to walk alone, as do most of the single pilgrims. Our gite tonight is in another old city with lots of character.  There is a castle in the center of town that was built for a child of Louis XVI, who went under the guillotine during the French Revolution.  A group of nuns used it for a school until recently, when a former French president bought it.  Our host speaks very good English and has walked the full Camino from Le Puy, so we flooded her with questions.  Dinner was vegetarian and very tasty. We ended dinner a little earlier so we were able to browse the town in twilight. Esther is developing another blister. so our host is offering assistance in dressing it.

Emotional Roller Coaster

 Day 8 - St. Come D’olt

     Because of lodging availability we had a short day’s walk. After an hour of dealing with bills and forms through texting with Calvin back home, we started our descent towards our day’s destination.  Esther’s blister was hurting and we began to get a little discouraged about things.  Did we bite off more than we can chew?  Will our bodies hold up?  Can we finish in time?  We were looking forward to staying at a convent tonight but were anxious about the next few nights.  The town of Conques is coming up and it has its yearly festival on Tuesday.  (Kind of like Octoberfest in Leavenworth) 

   We arrived at the convent and were able to stash our packs and explore the medieval town of Saint-Come-d’Olt.  It felt like walking through a medieval movie set.  The town was eerily quiet in the middle of the day.  Aside from a couple of lively restaurants, the town was shut down. (typical of French towns shut down from 12:30 pm until 3 or 4 pm). After lunch at a sidewalk sandwich shop, we headed back to the convent on the outskirts for an early check in.  We were surprised to find that they could not find our reservation though I know I had made it.  I was able to show them their number on my phone history, but they couldn’t find anything.  They gave us the last room available-a private room!  

    We spent the remainder of the afternoon, frantically trying to reserve a room for Sunday night.  We went to what we thought was evening vespers that turned out to be mass.  In the middle of the service my phone went off and I rushed out in hopes of a possible reservation.  Unfortunately, it was to no avail and I let Esther finish mass without me.  I kept trying to make reservations, but I was becoming increasingly frustrated.  Right before dinner we were able to make a reservation.  Things started looking up! 

   Dinner was cafeteria style and we found seats by ourselves, thinking we were in for a‘lonely dinner’ listening to French.  Suddenly,  Father Patrick who had presided over the mass and had been interrupted by a rude American with a cell phone, sat down next to us, and in very good English started engaging us in conversation. We had a delightful conversation.  He is a theology professor who specializes in the history of St. Ignatius.  After I told him that we were using ‘Spiritual Exercises’ by Ignatius for our daily meditation, I was able to pick his brain.  It turns out that he has written books on the‘Spiritual Exercises’ and will be teaching at Oxford for the next couple of years.  Needless to say I was on cloud nine tonight.  I am grateful to the Lord for reassuring us of his love and care for us.  Thank you Father Patrick!

The Aubrac Plateau

 

Day 7 - Lastrade

We had breakfast at the hotel across from the gite.  A loaf of bread, an assortment of jelly, great coffee and an apple fuel us up for the morning.  Our morning walk took us across the summit of the Aubrac plateau.  The trail is a popular hiking destination for many vacationing French families, sometimes using rented donkeys to carry the camping gear. Open hillsides were dotted with cows and granite rocks.  Lunch found us in Saint Chely d’ Aubrac on the western edge of the plateau.  Since we had a long afternoon ahead of us we found a sandwich shop and enjoyed quiche and pizza.  The afternoon was difficult as Esther’s blister was hurting and there were some rugged uphill sections.  The gite was in a remote hamlet but is strictly run by a high energy matron.  Thanks to my lack of French in making reservations, the matron was only expecting one person.  As a result Esther and I are sharing a room with Tomas.  Dinner in the Gites is an all evening affair with many courses that last from seven until well after nine.  Tonight there weren’t any English speakers, or at least none that wanted to engage us in conversation.  You can’t imagine how awkward it was for Esther to not engage but listen to lively discussion without a clue of what is being said.

Morning Vespers on the Camino

 

Day 6 - Nasbinals

This morning we were treated with a private morning vespers by the two sisters who shared the gite with us.  They are on holiday from their work in inner city Paris where they serve the homeless by building relationships.  Our walk today was through the Aubrac Plateau, famous for its beef cows and unique stone houses. There were many more people on the trail today, many who were day hiking.  We are usually not enticed by a sandwich stand in a farm hamlet, but today’s opportunity was such a contrast to the remote surroundings.  The omelette and cheese plate we shared powered us with enough protein to finish our 12 mile journey.  Tonight’s gite is in a larger town and offered no dinner, so we enjoyed our first hamburger and FRENCH fries at a cafe practically in the middle of the street, in fact a small street did go right through the seating and the waitress had to dodge traffic.  One thing this Dutchman can get used to France is no tipping.  After 5 days of lively dinner company, it was a nice break to eat alone.