A long road

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 definitely worth a visit (maybe not after having walked 6 hours with a 10 kg backpack though). I stopped at the old bridge and had some saucisson and a mandarin, as I still had over 2 hours to get to my destination including a long steep uphill climb.

My lodging for the night is a municipal gite which means I'm

given a key and can take care of myself.  That suits me fine, and the lodging is clean and functional except that it doesnt have heating.  Temperatures during the day have gone up to 15 but at night its still closer to 5.  Needless to say I am writing this sitting extremely close to the fire.

Before I sign off I hope someone identified which of the villages I mentionned is the odd one out and why.  (5 points)  
 
  
 

Comments

  1. AuntC19 March 2022 at 12:49

    St Jean Pied de Port… it has no C’s in it. I’m very sensitive to that.
    C.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Fabien19 March 2022 at 12:56

      Sorry, wrong. More subtle.

      Delete
    2. Lediplo19 March 2022 at 13:58

      Si le comte n'y était pas, aloès ce n'était pas Champignac.

      Delete
    3. Fabien19 March 2022 at 22:31

      Ah, l'érudition ça fait la différence.

      Delete
  2. Irène20 March 2022 at 12:57

    Great ! I just managed to have google chrome thanks to Pierre who is back from skiing at last. A bit late unfortunately!!!
    I very much enjoyed your blog. I shall miss it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Final preparation

Image
Oyez, Oyez!  Let it be known throughout the land that Fabien-The-Pilgrim was born today!  Yes after hiking in the Pyrenees for 3 days, taking cold showers for 3 years, fasting for 30 days and blogging for 365 days I have decided to combine all of my activities into a 60 day Pilgrimmage from Le Puy-en-Velay to St Jacques de Compostelle.  However, as my wife would like us to spend our 10th wedding anniversary together and preferably not in a cold dormitory in a gite  on the Aubrac plateau (she's clearly very difficult), I will be interrupting my journey after 10 days. For those of you who don't know me I am undertaking this pilgramage as a spiritual voyage to a higher plane which will allow me to become a better person through a greater understanding of my core purpose and connection my my soul... For those of you who know me I foolishly announced that I was going to do this and I might as well try to lose weight in the process. I have spent the last 2 days...
Read more