September 17th Conques

What a lovely small walled city to explore on a day off! Our Chambre de hotes Casalou was at the bottom of a steep hill on the Chemin going out of town. We had a large attic room decorated for a child and had in addition to our large double bed, 2 bunk beds. We had our meal at the Cassalou the first night along with 4 other older French people who were walking and driving their car. After breakfast we walked up the steep cobbled pedestrian road 300 meters to the Abbey Church of Saint Foy at Conques.

Abbey Church Tympananum of the Last Judgement - 12th Century 

The abbey is UNESCO heritage site, as is the old bridge leading out of town and across the river Lot. We attended the mid day prayers and heard the beautiful organ. We walked though the town and had a picnic lunch of quiches and a delicious hazelnut cake. Most of the village is clearly geared towards tourists with many restaurants and souvenir and art shops. The weather was intermittent sunshine but proceeded to start raining again in the afternoon. We visited the different chapels of the abbey and the Tresor (treasure) room which included a relic of the skull of S. Foye.  She was a young girl from Agen, France who was to have performed many miracles related to eyes, but was martyred by orders of the Emperor Diocletion (we think) in 303 AD. Her skull is encased in gold and bejeweled. There are many other interesting religious relics from the Middle Ages that have been kept continously in this old abbey. The display was well laid out and we had received a brochure with all the item captions written in English which was very much appreciated.

Conques from outside one of the gates

We stopped by the Abbey Gite which is where close to 100 pelerins have been staying each night, mostly in dormitory accommodations. Our three dog friends were sitting at the door of the Gite looking exhausted, and the smallest one had her legs bandaged. As all the pelerin's meals are served at the Gite, in the evening many of the restaurants close down. On our second night in the town we had elected not to eat at our hotel and thus were surprized to find so few places open for dinner. After a nice meal we went to the Church along with all the other Pelerin for a concert of the organ. It was very nice but we were not expecting to hear "The House of the Rising Sun" played in such a venue!

Sept 18th 2013 Conques to Figeac

Sept.18 Conques by cab 30 km to Montredon (bypassing ugly industrial city Decazeville and missing a long walk along the road)  and walk about 20 km to Figeac which is a large town on the river Cele. This was previously an important stop on the Chemin de Compostella and there were six hospitals there. On our walk we passed the small Chappelle de Guirade and since the doors are open we go inside to see the alter. This Chapelle had some well preserved murals from the 14th century.

We had a delicious lunch of soup, herb omelet, fresh salad from the garden and home made yogurt and fruit in a small farm at the village of Bord! Some of our best meals have been in places like this. Even though the seating was outdoors we were protected from the rain that came while we ate. On walking out of the farm we were accompanied by the sweetest, energetic, labrador mixed dog that simply would not stop accompanying us. We would say "Allez a votra maison" to no effect. We would ask other walkers to assist us in sending the the dog back but they had no luck. Finally she left us in a village 3 km later (picture 284). We probably walked another couple of kilometers on the path and lo and behold saw our dog had reunited with its front yard! The owner and was getting ready to put him on a leash to be taken for a walk!

Our Camino Companion from lunch

 Figeac is a lovely old city even when you arrive in the pouring rain,as we did! It took us awhile to find our way through the old medieval parts of town to our very basic Gite. David was ready to walk out on seeing it was a very basic dormitory (Gite St. Joseph), and then stairs up where there was a large outdoor umbrella standing open to protect you from the rain as you moved to the next level in the house. After taking off our boots and stuffing them with newspapers and then putting them on the rack to join all the other wet boots, hanging our soaking jackets on the hooks with the wet ponchos and then our poles to join the others by the door and getting out the clothes and other items we would need for the evening and night and putting them in a bag provided by the Gite, we were then ready to store our backpacks on the shelves with all the other backpacks and find our room. This is the first time we had encountered such a procedure to help eliminate the passing of bed bugs.

When finally being shown to our room we found we had 5 twin beds in it, but we were assured that we would be the only ones sleeping there. The bathroom was around the corner throughout the owner's kitchen, and was shared with 3 other such similar rooms. Our room had been turned into a Chinese laundry with clothes hung to dry everywhere.  We had an excellent Internet connection and where able to talk to Jonathan and Kat as they are close to the same time zone. We also talked with David's mother as we had learned that her brother had passed away. It was a good time to have excellent internet! One of the differences we find along the Chemin in France and that in Spain is that in most places here you take demi-pension and you eat en famille with all the other pelerins, usually starting at the late hour of 7:30 and not ending until 9:30pm.  Conversation was mostly in French but as always and even in this humble git great effort went into the preparation and presentation of the meal. We ended up having a street light shining into the room all night as there were no curtains, obviously the two young women with this business were still working to bring the Gite up in standard. The next morning we ate the usual breakfast which has been put out and is self serve. The French must have their bread fresh daily and as the bakery does not open until 7am usually breakfast starts shortly thereafter. At breakfast you do not get a plate but rather a paper napkin and deep small bowl. The bowl is what we use as a mug and you put you cafe au lait, tea, or hot chocolate in it, but it is also perfect for dipping your fresh bread or croissant into. The napkin is your paper plate. Everyone cleans up after themselves in the morning - bowls and spoons into the sink and napkins in the trash bin. By 8:30am the place is empty and we are our way.

Conques Organ at the Abbey of St Foy

Sept 15th and 16th Espalion to Conques

September 15 Espalion past Estaing to Golinac (about 28 km)

After breakfast we walked quickly over the thousand-year-old bridge and out of town along the Lot River. we saved ourselves some up and down by going along the road for about eight kilometers until we reached another very picturesque village, Estaing, which is dominated by a 900-year-old castle that was purchased in 2005 by former French President Valery Giscarde D'Estaing. His grandfather had purchased the aristocratic Estaing name, being only distantly related. After a heavy lunch, we walked along the river for about an hour before we stated to climb over a thousand feet to the top of the overlooking mountain. Unfortunately there was no coffee stop or even a bench on this track!  We finally straggled into the small hamlet of Golinac at almost 6 pm. Our pedometers registered over 40,000 steps for the first time, and about 230 flights of stairs of climbing, for a distance of 29 kilometers. We had a good dinner and enjoyed the heat in our camp-style cabin at Pole Touristique Bellvue. Dinner was down the road at the Auberge--Chambre d'hotels la Bastide D'Olt and was delicious and worth the extra steps to get there.

September 16 Golinhac to Conques (18 kilometers)

We had breakfast at 7:30 and were on the way by 8:20, pretty good for us. we covered the 8.5 km to Espeyrac very easily in the mist, but when we reached the next picturesque town of Senergues 3.5 km further, it had started to rain. We had lunch with our French friends and we all for shared a cab for the last 8 km down a steep road to Conques, where we said goodbye to Martine and Jean-Luc, who were retuning home the following day. We had reserved a room for two nights in a cute place just below the village. After another wonderful pilgrim meal with four courses, we crashed and looked forward to explore this famous pilgrim town next morning.

Doesn't the road to Golinhac end soon? It is after 6pm!

On the way to Golinhac

Chateau d'Estaing

Arriving at St.-Come-d'Olt

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Sept 14th St. Chely-d'Aubrac through St. Come-d'Olt to Espalion

We did not have a restful nights sleep as we realized that we had not communicated with Malle de postal, the company moving our bags, as to the next destination, so we fretted most of the night about how to remedy the situation. Our French SFR phone has been unreliable to say the least, and when we tried to make a call or send a text message it said we had no money or credit on the phone. This meant we had to wait till the breakfast hour to address the situation. We asked the proprietress of the Hotel d'Chambre to call the company, but there was no answer as it is a weekend. So we marked the bags with today's hotel and left them out on the street in a very obvious place for the Malle Postale's van to see. We got a call on our defunked French phone from Jayo at Malle Postale. Someone had picked up the bags, but he wanted to be clear as to where the bags were to be taken and let us know we must call the night before to confirm the next destination. We apologized and gave him the information for our gite accomodations over the next few days. So glad he called!

From St Chely d'Aubrac it is straight out of  the village up a hill followed by fairly slow decent on the wide drove roads until 7 km, and then steep consecutive drops and climbing for 5 kilometers. David had put on his hiking boots today with full ankle support and was very happy. Leslie had boiled some eggs in another little gadget she is carrying and we were delighted to have them as a snack as we walked along.

Lunch was at the one and only place in the small town of Le Roziere, which we arrived at just before 2pm, so lunch was still being served. We met up with our friends Martine and Jean-Luc there. We had the most delicious thick crepe called Farcous with an amazing view while we cooled our feet. We walked the next 4 km to Saint Come-d'Olt easily as we were coming into the valley of the River Lot. The town of St. Come-d'Olt was charming and has some old pilgrim buildings that are over 1,000 years old, and a very unusual 16 th Century church with a twisted spire like the one in Chesterfield, England.

After buying some more credit for our French phone, we took a taxi with Jean-Luc and Martine about  five km to our hotel in Espalion.  We had covered about 17 km of what is considered the hardest part of the Camino, and Jean-Luc had developed bad blisters which could jeopardize the rest of his hike to Conques unless he took time to tend to them.

Friday sept 13th Nasbinals to Saint Chely-d'Aubrac

Our friends Martine and Jean Luc

We had a lovely walk today through the Aubrac plateau and down 400 meters at the end of the day in primarily over cast weather. We had an excellent breakfast of croissant, a fresh crepe, juice, coffee and yogurt before getting some cash from the bank-o-mat and heading out of town by 9:45. The bare landscape of open grassland dotted with bizarrely-shaped outcrops of basalt rock from yesterday was now softened with green carpeting along drailles or drove roads for cattle. We were also walking through the cow pastures and climbed about 200 meters to reach the lovely town of Aubrac right at lunch time.

The village of Domerie Aubrac has been a pelerin (pilgrim) hospital and place of rest since 1120 AD. The village was founded by Adelard de Flandres, the Flemish knight, who was attacked by bandits on his way to Santiago, and, in gratitude for surviving the attack, and the another near death experience in a storm on his return from the Camino, decided to found a hospital for pilgrims on the site. We ate lunch at restaurant Chez Germaine and had the most delicious cheese soup, salad and then an incredible berry tart!

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 The restaurant was serving the area's specialty of aligot (mash potatoes and cheese but they pull it out of a big pot and cut it with scissors like taffy.) With full stomachs we wandered on down the trail for another 2 and a half hours to find our Gite  in St. Chely-d'Aubrac. We were fortunate enough to have our laundry washed and dried by the proprietress of our hotel. Our room has 2 twin beds, a sink, and a shower. The toilet is down the hall, which we find to be an interesting room configuration.

We were sad to learn today of the passing of David's Uncle Art Boynton. Uncle Art had just had a big party  a month ago for his 90th birthday. We called David's mother to express our condolences and then figure out how to send flowers for the service tomorrow.

Camino Monument near Aubrac - in silence and in solitude we contemplate what is important

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Happy to reach Nasbinals 27 Km from Aumont-Aubrac

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Cross on bridge

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Bridge on track to Nasbinals

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Sept 11 & 12, 2013 to Aumont-Aubrac to Nasbinals

We keep on walking along passed by many but slow and steady we arrive at each destination. It is taking us between 6 and 8 hours a day to cover the distances we plan. The scenery that we walk through has changed daily from lush hay fields, green pastures and beautiful cows to barren rolling hills with big boulders. This region is an old volcanic region. The broad tracks are marked well and many have old stone crosses as well as more intricate metal ones. Each day we seem to be in packs of 30 pelerin walking within a few kilometers of us, with a few within sight.

Arriving in Aumont-Aubrac, Leslie almost burst into tears with what a lovely room we had in a very old house. The Maison was a combination of 2 houses, one from 1430 and the other 1700s. The proprietress Madame Cecile said that her family had owned the houses since 1780. Our bedroom was huge and had lovely wood carved room divider between the sitting area and the bedroom. The bathroom was lovely and had soft  comfy robes. Madam also washed and dried  all our laundry! This meant we could really just relax once we set up our own wi-Fi, connected to her internet, and we could post the blog. We had dinner with our walking companions Martine and Jean Luc at a local restaurant. We were served an outstanding meal which included steak and aligot. This Aubrac area is famous for its Aligot, which is a hearty mix of mashed potatoes and cheese. The food that we have had for  our set price dinners have been delicious, and have included the local meats, cheeses and wines. The day was to have been a "short" day of 12 km but turned out to be 17km and few places for a cafe or a snack.

Thursday from our lovely Maison we went by taxi with our friends 5km out of town to a small chapel, thereby avoiding a long detour to cross a highway leaving town, and started on the trail from there. Martine and Jean Luc have done this trail a few years ago and with the advent of the highway the Chemin now has a detour of over 3 km to go around the highway. As the day would have been 27km long, we decided to share the taxi with them and make it a 21km day. By 8:45 we were on the way. The weather was cold and blustery all day. We had put on zinc oxide as a sunscreen but mainly to prevent chapping from the cold wind. We had a lovely hot vegetable soup in Finieyrols along with a baguet sandwich with ham. We stopped for cafe au lait at Montgros, 2 km from our evening destination of Nasbinals. We arrived wearing our rain jackets as it was a cold, 55F. The trail today was exposed to the cold wind but beautiful. Many of the pelerin we met in Spain that had walked through France had said the scenery and food were better in France than in Spain.

The proprietress of our guest house creates perfumes using the local herbs which are known here in the Aubrac area. The plateau of Aubrac is home to more than 2,000 species of plants, including such herbs as thyme, sage, chamomile and mugwort. One of these, called calaman (also known as AubracTea) is much appreciated for its mint-like aroma. We booked the next two nights rooms in Saint-Chely d'Aubrac and then Espalion, and advised the baggage people of these plans. We tried to get the proprietress to book through Monday night for us but she had had enough dealing with the 2 nights for us. We are having dinner with our friends so we will ask them to help us.

Arriving in Saugues @42 km from Le Puy

Looking back over the Monistrol d'Allier valley

Dogs with their gear ready to walk all the way to Santiago

Le Chemin de St. Jacques

Walking along Sept 8-10th Le Chemin de Saint-Jacques de Composelle

We left Bains, Sunday, a little after 8 am and walked to Monistol-d'Allier. Our hosts were up in the morning with the breakfast on the table. After breakfast we paid 75€ for our meals and room and they stamped our Credenteil. Our hike Sunday was about 22 kilometers with mostly down hills. It was also raining in the afternoon so the path became slippery. We were walking with a Canadian couple (65 and 70 yrs of age) and a young Chinese girl who was studying French in Lyon. There are very few cafe and lunch stops along this route. Also as the French eat between 12 and 2 pm if you are not at a location with a cafe in those times you are out of luck. We had read about packing a picnic but had not realized the importance of this yet.

We ate our granola bars from the breakfast in Le Puy and some cheese slices from the same place.  On arrival we were delighted to finally get out of the wet and cold a little after 4pm. The Gite where we were staying did not have the owner there so we just went and claimed a double room. There were 3 other Canadians, and a young Swiss girl who had left from Geneva a month ago. The proprietor arrived around 5pm to prepare our dinner which consisted of a lovely salad, sausages, boiled potatoes, carrots and local red wine. This Gite (simple guest house) had a place for washing clothes which we used.

As we learned was the norm, the proprietress would put out the makings for our breakfast or inform us as to where they were as breakfast was self-serve. Breakfast usually consisted of French bread, jam, juice, coffee/tea and if you were lucky some fresh yogurt for protein.   Our clothes were not dry in the morning so we packed them up and hoped to dry them later in the day at the next stop.

Monday had us walking to La Clauze with the most difficult part coming in the first few kilometers as it was basically straight up to get out of the valley. We were again walking with the same companions part of they way. We were seeing signs for a  mushroom omelette at a cafe up the path we we kept hoping we would make it there to enjoy one. We were all very happy to get there at 1:45pm so in time to have that delicious omelette. The mushrooms were grown in the area and the omelette was delicious as was the owners blueberry tart!

We then split from our companions as we needed to walk 7 km further and needed to pick up our pace. We finally struggled into La Clauze (almost 9 hrs on the path) and found our Gite- the only place in a very small hamlet. We pelerin ate together in front of a fire on a big long table. Sophie our proprietress  cooked a lovely zucchini soup, salad, ham, potatoes with cheese, a plate of cheeses she had made, plus creme brûlée for dessert. We were able to put our wet laundry near the fire overnight.

Tuesday morning we had a self serve breakfast which included yogurt. We also gave ourselves a protein shake for energy. Sophie had kindly helped us organize a room for the next night. We had wanted to walk only 20 km but were forced by lack of accommodation to go further to St-Alban-sur -Limagnole for a total distance of 24 km. we left our bags for La Malle Postale to pick up and move to the hotel Central in St. Albans. The country walk was beautiful over rolling hills, cow pastures, and wild flower fields. We had been thinking to take a short cut as some French pelerin had told us about that they were going to take but unfortunately we missed it so it became a very long day and Leslie finally insisted to stop and call a taxi if there was to be any ability to walk the next day (sore hip, shin splits and foot ailments).  Our French SIM card which had been working but now for some inexplicable reason was not, which caused more consternation. however we asked for help at the Gite we had wanted to stay in but they were full. One kind man from Marseille offered to give us a ride the last 3 km to the village. We were so grateful! We had done over 8 1/2 hrs of walking. Dinner at the hotel was with a group of French hikers that live in the south of France and a Swiss fellow Conrad who had walked from his house near Geneva. He was going on to Santiago. The hotel lady here has booked our rooms for tomorrow night and the night thereafter so we can rest now with that concern done.

Wednesday morning we took some extra time to write the blog, do emails and rest. We are doing only 12 km today according to the guides. It is very strange but various hikers that we have met have been complaining about the fact the distances in the guide book are not correct and that someone must have driven on a road and put in the distances based on that drive - no one has found the distance to be shorter than in the guide book and most have found them to be a couple of km more.  This has been the case with us and our FitBits! The FitBits also show calories burned, usually 2,500, and number of stairs climbed.

Le Puy to Baines in Haute Loire

We left Le Puy by 9 AM. Our backpacks had been picked up at 8:45 am so we were literally dashing out of the hotel following our bags. We had a little difficultly getting out of town as we could not find the traditional Camino shell or GR65 white and red markings on the road or buildings.

We walked about 15 km from Le Puy to Bains. Bains Is not directly on the Chemin de St. Jacques but was necessary because there were no rooms available within a reasonable distance. The weather forecast was rain and thunderstorms for the whole day. We carried the appropriate raingear and were fortunate that it was not needed as the rain started after we arrived at Bain's we climbed over 500 m in today's hike.

We had a lovely communal meal with 14 other pelerins that had been caught in the rain and had found no place to stay on the trail. Our inn keeper Daniel had gone to pick them up and drove them to Bains.


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September 2013 DC to Paris and on to Le Puy-en-Velay for the Via Podiensis

Cathedral Le Puy

St Jaques

September 2013 DC to Paris and on to Le Puy-en-Velay for the Via Podiensis

Sept.4 -6th
Our overnight United flight from Washington Dulles to Paris was smooth and we were fortunate to have any empty seat between us on this night flight to spread out a little more. On arrival in Paris we collected our luggage and then found a taxi to take us to a friend of ours daughter's house where we were dropping off some gifts for their grandchildren. We had been told that the taxis took credit cards, so we did not change the US dollars we were carrying with us as the rates seemed very poor. The taxi we found did not,however, take credit cards, but he stopped at an ATM to let us get some euros so we could pay him.

When we arrived at apartment, although we had been sending text messages and left a voice mail, we were not able to connect with anyone at the home. So we stood outside for awhile until someone came out and then we explained what we wanted - this got us in past the first door. Once again blocked by another door we looked at all the apartment buttons and called our friends daughter's place, but no answer. It was of course peak time to be taking children to school. We then pushed a neighbor's intercom button and explained what we wanted and she let us in. We forgot to ask though what apartment number we needed to go to, but again luck prevailed and the maid of the apartment was the next person we spoke too- so the suitcase was left as a wonderful surprise for grandchildren and we departed for the train station.

In our tiredness we went to the wrong train station (Nord instead of Lyon), but we were stil able to buy the train ticket for later that afternoon all the way to Le Puy-en-Velay. We did have a moment of frustration, could almost have been back in Thailand, as we had to repeat our final destination at least three times before the ticket master understood our destination. When he finally understood and repeated our destination Le Puy-en-Valey, it sounded to us just like the way we had each been saying it!

We bought first class tickets (300 euros for 2) because we wanted to be sure and have air conditioning and good comfortable seats for napping. We struggled to understand the metro after the taxis outside Gare Nord requested 50 euros to go to the other station. The price came down to 30 euros, but we were annoyed, so traveled instead by metro for 3 euros for the two of us.

With one 5 minute train change we arrived in Le Puy a little after 5pm and walked to the tourist office to find accommodation (up hill with packs) and ended up at the Ibis Stylus hotel (118 euros a night) where we arranged to stay for 2 nights. We had dinner out on one of the very pleasant old squares and were in bed by 8 pm, worn out be our overnight flight and language challenges.

Friday morning we were up breakfasted and at the Cathedral for special pilgrim mass at 7 am. The Bishop of Le Puy also does a pelerin prayer after mass and gave us a small medal to carry. The cathedral has a black Virgin Mary statue, we think this is very unusual in Europe, we photographed that statue and also the statue of St Jacques the Pilgrim, who is known as St. James in English and Santiago in Spanish. The Bishop took the usual role call of where the pelerin, about 150, came from and we were amazed at the number of Americans. Large group from West Virginia, a couple from New York, Nebraska, Kansas and Florida. Majority of the pelerins were white hairs, expected at this time of year, and looked as out of shape as we look - not expected.