Over hills but not under hill

  I got up to a cold gite this morning and quickly got ready to go.  Having checked out my breakfast (which had been given to me in a bag the night before) I decided to share it with the chickens outside my door.  I'm afraid this is a reflection on the quality of the breakfast rather than a newfound love of barnyard animals. I left Noillhac and headed off towards Decazeville (see photo) in what turned out to be a sunny but chilly day.  When you are up on the hills there is still an occasional chilly wind. This stage was a little dissapointing, the landscapes are not as impressive as in the Aubrac and there is a lot more evidence of human activity.  Houses and farms crop up regularly and I was often walking on asphalt. However, my final chambre d'hote (an upgrade from the gites I have been in so far) makes up for the day.  A 300 year old house with a nice fire and proper insulation allowed me to relax after my last full day of hiking (tomorrow is a short ...

I left my gite aroud 8 in what was to be a sunny but bracing morning.  I quickly realised that the stage was going to be harder than I thought.  First my right knee started hurting, not badly but uncomfortable in descents, then the terrain turned out to be a lot more up and down then I expected.  Finally, as I walked through  Campuac, Campaniac, Golinhac,  Champignac and Eysperac there were no open bars or cafés to give me an excuse to stop and have a coffee. I did get to see 2 of Julien's balckboards though.  Julien is a hospitalier (which I as far as I can gather is someone who helps in a gite for practically no pay) for a Gite called l'Alchimiste situated at St Jean Pied de Port (the last stage of the chemin in France).  The owner has asked Julien to walk the path for a month and hang these blackboards with cryptic thoughts written on them.  Thats 8kgs of these blackboards, plus his own things! I also walked through Conques, which is definitel...

  I feel I have gone down the wrong path (blog wise not physically).  Shouldn't a walking blog be about places and culture and stuff? As I leave Bessuéjouls * (pop. 202 not counting cats and donkeys) I can see on my right the beautiful little medieval church of St Peters.  This church is a lovely example of Romanesque architecture and possesses a rare feature.  The church has an elevated chapel (that's the bit where priests  pray or say mass for those of you not well versed in christian religion).  You go up a few flights of narrow hidden stairs and find yourself in a small room of 6 x 7 m with a stone altar and a variety of sculpted religious figures.  A most satisfying experience!   Leaving the village you will immediately take a narrow winding path through a forest of er, um, ... trees (sorry I can't tell an Elm from a Birch)!  The path takes you up into the hills and after a few hours (of slogging up an down) to the charming hamlet o...

  I left Saint-Chely d'Aubrac this morning and took this photo as I left.  The village of the dead opposite the village of the living.  I wonder if it makes it easier to think of dying as just moving from one side of the valley to the other.   There is also a river in between the two "villages" to clearly show the transition (no 3 headed dog though).   More forests, more hills, more rivers, more cows yada, yada, yada.  I can see you're getting bored with all these descriptions so I thought I would talk about communication. Until this evening (where I had a proper conversation with my hosts, more on this tomorrow) the talk has been very one sided.  All I need to do is ask a simple question like how long have you been here or where are you from and off they go giving me their life story.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, I'm just surprised because a lot of people come through these gites during the season, which means a lot of re...

Having taken my obligatory photo I left bright and early this morning ready for my biggest stage (30Km).  For most of the morning it was cold and windy as I walked through bare hilltops with very little cover.  This is why my thoughts turned to literature (see title).  Historically, as some of my readers may know I have been considered an avid reader.  However, over the last few years my consumption of books has suffered from the competition of Netflix.  I don't want to knock films and series (although that is exactly what I'm doing) but I can't think of a film that I have appreciated as much as any one of my top ten favorite books. As with many things in life (but not all) the easier they are the less satisfying they end up being. My musings on literature were interrupted by the arrival of a new companion.  An amicable dog decided to show me the way.  We walked together for a few miles into and out of the next village.  I was begining to think th...

This is the lovely village of Saint-Alban-de-Limagnole where i stayed last night (as Felicity guessed correctly).  A typical example of many of the villages I have walked though, picturesque sounding name but a little the worse for wear. Today was an active social day, I said hello to 2 old ladies out walking their dogs, I apologised to a series of horses and mules for not having any apples with me and I scared a hare                                                                  into running across a field. When I wasn't socialising, my observation of the countryside brought back different memories of my childhood.  First I walked through relatively bare and peaty terrain which reminded me of my time in York and in particular of walking or playing on the moors with Giles my childhoo...