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Chemin d’Arles
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Chemin d’Arles

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  • Trip start
    March 27, 2026
    mary louise adamsChemin d’Arlesmary louise adams
    Bullfighting over EasterCemetery closed due to wind!The start!Inside the cloister211Exhibition by Pierre Marie Brisson. He designed the poster for the bullfighting.2Anti Airbnb poster3This goes on for at least 8 days!

    Arles

    March 27 in France ⋅ 🌬 8 °C

    Arles is a small, beautiful city full of Roman monuments, but I will remember it for the wind. The Mistral. I’m sure I’ve read about it in novels. In Hemingway stories about the Spanish civil war, before they cross the border from France? In Villa Air-Bel, a book, loaned to me by Roberta Hamilton, that is about a group of German and French “enemies of the Third Reich,” artists and intellectuals living as refugees in occupied France, the Americans and French who support them, and the house where they take refuge near Marseille, and that is now serialized on Netflix? The inspector Bruno murder mysteries, which I love, that are set in Perigord? I just looked up the Mistral in literature and while I didn’t find the novels I was looking for, I did find a history of France, as shaped by the Mistral. It’s by Catherina Tatiana Dunlop, if you are interested. This wind is pushy and intense and, it seems, relentless. It rearranges things on the street — potted plants, outdoor furniture, scaffolding. It’s loud and cold. Easy to imagine that it has shaped the history of France! My first task this morning was to buy gloves to replace the ones I lost yesterday (maybe because of the wind?). It looks like I will be walking with the wind for at least a week.

    The walk I am here to to is the Chemin d’Arles, or some people call it the Via Tolosana. It is the most southern of the four main French routes that lead to the Camino routes in Spain. I first heard about it from Michel, a French man with whom I walked on my first Camino in the spring of 2000 — Laurie, who is maybe reading this — walked with him too! He had walked the Chemin d’Arles the previous year. At the time he was in his mid 60s, and I was very impressed! Of course I am now the same age he was and regularly see people 10, 15, 20 years older than this on many of the long walks. What was once impressive now feels normal, but I do feel lucky and grateful to be here. Maybe especially for the people who are looking after the poodle!

    The first 4 days to Montpelier are flat, then some time in some serious hills on the way to Toulouse, which I have just learned is the third biggest city in France. Then into the foothills and over the Pyrenees at the Somport pass. That’s the official end of the Chemin d’Arles. From there you continue on the Camino Aragones for about a week to a town on the big, crowded, popular Camino Frances. It is called Puenta La Reina, where, yes, there is a very nice bridge. The walk is about 800 kilometres to there. At that point, I will see how much time I have and how I am feeling and then maybe I will walk the busy Camino in reverse for one day to Pamplona. That is the likely stopping point, though if I have enough time and all my joints are still working, I will walk another small Camino in reverse, the Camino Baztan, up to Bayonne, just over the border in France. I really like the idea of walking back to France! It would also make the trip very close to 1000 km. A nice round number!

    Tomorrow is flat, 20 km, and not that exciting, according to the people on the Internet. There is a variant that follows a river and gets you off the pavement but, apparently, you hardly ever see the river and it’s buggy and monotonous. So I will follow the main route to St Gilles — end point of the Way of St Gilles (GR 700) that E and I did in 2014 - though we did not have enough days to make it to the very end. The temperature was also in the mid-30s by that point. Way too hot for us. Hence the fact that I start this route in March!

    I arrived here yesterday afternoon, and I’ve not done justice to Arles. Lots of Roman remnants. Beautiful cloister beside the cathedral - free entrance and many good wishes for pilgrims. Big Van Gogh museum, though I only went as far as the court yard garden. The official start of this route is just outside the gates of a Roman cemetery, a few hundred metres beyond the centre of the city. Today the cemetery was closed because of the wind!    Read more

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    Mandatory starting photo
    The big Rhône1Saint-Gilles is full of Camino markings11Entrance hall at the gîte1

    Day 1 Arles to Saint-Gilles, 22 km

    March 28 in France ⋅ 🌬 11 °C

    Walking again! Such a great thing. The first day of a trip is full of remembering - oh this is how I do this! This is what it feels like! Nice to stop obsessing about walking and just walk. It’s the best thing.

    It was a perfectly fine first day. Very chilly start in Arles, despite the sun. But eventually the wind died down, some layers came off. And the weather was really pleasant. There was no coffee at the hotel where I was staying this morning, which gave me a good excuse to go to the fancy coffee shop around the corner. I didn’t get away until about 10:15. Stopped at a boulangerie to get a sandwich and then made my way out of the city. The only particularly notable moment of the exit was crossing the river Rhône. It’s almost at its end at that point, and it’s huge. It is not the longest river in France, but apparently it has the most water. No markings to help you on your way until you are a good ways out of town. I was glad I had downloaded a gps track.

    The route was flat, flat, flat. For most of the day I walked along a small paved road, flanked on both sides by marshy farmland. This is the definition of the Camargue - wet, flat, home to white horses and black cattle, some of whom are raised for meat and some to be used in a kind of bull running event in which the humans try to take a cockade (I had to look this up - it’s a rosette or decoration usually made of ribbon) off the head of the bull - rather than kill him. The big “field” crop in the Camargue is rice. I saw a rice research Institute, but I do not think I saw any rice paddies. I did see an enclosure with about 7 or 8 of the black cattle, who announced themselves with cheerful cowbells. They were frolicking, which is not what you expect to see when people are talking about the taureux! All along the road I passed gates for Mas this and Mas that. A mas is a farm, maybe a bit more like a ranch or a hacienda. In this region they have no windows on the north side to protect against the Mistral wind. Most of those I passed were quite hidden from the road. All you see when walking by are the gates. So it’s a lonely (but not creepy) road.

    The Camargue is the land/delta that lays between the (Grand) Rhône River and the Petit Rhône. I crossed the first in the morning, leaving Arles, and the second just outside Saint-Gilles. Part of the route went through the Parc Naturel Régional Camargue, though I could not say where. I saw no signs for that. Lots of raptors, big and small. And sea birds that I think were terns. Some butterflies.

    It seems like I’ve landed in late spring/early summer. Not all the trees have leaves, but most do, at various stages of unraveling. There are buttercups and other flowers blooming in the ditches, fruit trees with blossoms.

    On the way into St Gilles you walk through a little industrial area, along a canal, past a circus tent, and past dozens and dozens of rental boats on the water. I’m staying in a private gîte. There are three of us here. Two other women have a double room upstairs, and I have a bed in the 3-bed dormitory, which I have all to myself. It is a massive stone house. I am guessing the ceiling in this room is about 15’ high. But the door to enter it is only about 5’ high! The owners prepared a fantastic dinner. Fancy bakeoff worthy chorizo bread-thing, shaped like the sun, followed by salmon and (local) rice with fresh radishes and then chocolate cake. Demi pension (bed, dinner, breakfast) is 40€. Demi-pension is one of the very good things about walking in France!    Read more

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    Leaving Saint-Gilles
    11They are guarding a vineyard full of sheep!Totally unfazed by the barbed wire.1

    Day 2 Saint-Gilles to Gallargues, 30 km

    March 29 in France ⋅ 🌬 8 °C

    Long day for day 2, but everything feels fine! There is really only one thing to say about today: the wind was incredible, all day long, though it calmed down a bit in the afternoon. During the morning, the windspeed was around 50, gusts over 80. It was spectacular and annoying and scary, all at once. It is so noisy. The howling and the freight train noise and the noise of all the things blowing around or straining at their moorings. I wished sometimes I had noise cancelling headphones. I kept looking behind me because I thought there was a car coming, but of course it was just the wind. You can really see how people could inbue this force with personality and spirit. It presents with a lot of agency and has a lot of effect on the world around it. The times I walked down into a hollow or behind a thick hedgerow, it was instant relief.

    This morning, the path made big zigzags across the countryside. So for a while, I was walking into the wind, which had its own ideas about how much ground I should cover. Then I would turn a corner, and get pushed sideways into some bushes or towards a canal. The few times the wind got behind me, I flew, trying to avoid puddles and deep ruts, not quite under control. Halfway through the day, my legs felt exhausted, not joints or any specific muscle, just legs, from, I think, having to work so hard to keep me vertical.

    The scariest thing was walking alongside power lines. Instead of making nice straight lines between the poles, the wires were making huge, vibrating arcs over the track I was on. Which way would they fall when they snapped? You could have bodysurfed on the canal, where big swells were alternating with white caps. At one point a banana was blown out of my hand. But somehow birds — including the egrets I scared by a creek — still managed to fly. I spent the entire day with all the layers on.

    The terrain was a bit more varied today. There were even a couple of small hills. A good size village for coffee and a bakery and a few benches.

    Tonight I’m I’m staying in a chambre d’hôtes, like a BNB without the breakfast. Beautiful, beautiful stone house with covered patio and a courtyard terrace with a small pool. My room is huge with very good heat. Sunday evening in a small French town, pizza was the only option for dinner. But it was really good. Tomorrow is a tiny bit shorter and I will stay in a pilgrim gîte. I think probably with some other people.    Read more

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    1No guardrailsSigns pointed to via ferrata route somewhere on this cliff.1Tree #1Tree #2

    Day 3 Gallargues to Vendarge, 29+km

    March 30 in France ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    A long day but with a blessedly normal wind! At some point I’ll have to start leaving earlier. I did not get out today until 8:30. Walked across the village for a croissant and coffee in a bakery full of Easter chocolates. Not just bunnies and eggs. The shop changes themes every year. This year’s is some kind of gremlin! I was not walking until about 9:00.

    Easy exit from Gallargues past a tiny bullring. Along a canal. Then over a river on a relatively busy road bridge with no guardrails or sides (to accommodate flooding). It was freaky. Then a series of four villages. I managed to find a coffee in village #3 in a super old school cafe. No food. Big tobacco stand, rugby paraphernalia everywhere. Smell of cigarettes. (Not allowed to smoke inside but…) I left there about 1:01 and realized the woman had been wanting to leave and close up to go home for lunch.

    The afternoon dragged a bit - or I did. Nothing open in any of the (very beautiful) villages. I took two big breaks, which I don’t usually do. At one point a woman came up the path to say a tree had come down a little ways along, and she could not get by. She said we had to go up the road instead. I stayed behind to go have a look. She was right. It was massive. Fence along the only place one could have gone around. So I went back out to take the detour, which was maybe a kilometre. It put us onto a bike path that would eventually cross the Camino. It also opened the opportunity for a short cut at the other end, a way to skip one of the villages (the one up the biggest hill). I should have taken it! But I was hopeful something would be open. No luck.

    Just before the end of the day there was another huge tree down. This one over a few rows of grape vines. Both trees were some kind of pine. We assume they fell in yesterday’s big wind.

    I keep trying to think of what these villages are like in the summer when it is hot. Apparently temperatures over 40 degrees are not unusual anymore. Schools are not air conditioned, so they have to close a lot in June. And, the woman at the gite the other night said, they are living more and more of their lives at night. She also said she has to put “sails” over top of her tomatoes or they will burn.

    It was 5:30 by the time I finished for the day. Too late! I’m staying at a private gite. It has 6 beds, but there just two of us here. Me and the woman I met by the tree. She’s Belgian and planning to continue to Santiago. She walked three weeks in Italy before coming here!

    I also saw a man walking today. He passed me at some point and then I passed him when he was having a nap on a bench. So that is 3 of us.

    Packaged salad from the grocery store for dinner. And then a friend and old colleague facetimed me so I could see another friend and old colleague get feted at her last lecture before she retires. Sometimes technology is good.

    Tomorrow is a short 12 kilometres to the big city of Montpelier!    Read more

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    Yesterday's gite
    The lakeUnusual multi-use courtAll of today on a bike pathVery fancy coffee3Coffee shop dog22GiteFreezing cold gîte

    Day 4 Vendargues to Montpellier, 12 km

    March 31 in France ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    Blessedly short day today. I slept in, dawdled over my nespresso coffee and did not leave the gîte until 10. Beautiful sunny day but a bit chilly. Two jacket morning. The route today connected the bedroom community of Vendargues to Montpellier. Last night the gite owner called it 12 kilometres of ugliness. It wasn’t. It certainly wasn’t the most beautiful landscape, but it was fine. Leaving through the outskirts of a town is often not beautiful. But it’s interesting. You see people at work. And in this case there were lots of people around, like the man on his bicycle who stopped to chat about the Camino with me. He has walked it (which one exactly I’m not sure) four times. He loves it. Me too!

    The Camino followed a paved bike path, always separated from the road and, at times, through some really nice parks, including one with a lake (though we might call it a really big pond). I walked past some very tidy suburban sub-divisions that reminded me a lot of Southern California. Lots of landscaping, the low stone walls or pillars at entranceways to the communities. Nothing obviously out of place.

    Just outside Montpellier I stopped at bakery to get a small quiche for lunch. It was shockingly good. The other day I had one that was so horrible I did not finish it.

    Montpellier is big and has a beautiful old centre. I’m staying in a hotel and was able to check in early. And then the highlight of the day - some seriously fancy coffee at a cafe that gives you a choice of beans and makes a perfect flat white. Also nice that the cafe had a dog assisting behind the counter!

    Normally to get a stamp in your credencial or pilgrim passport you would go to the church. I chose the wrong huge church, and the man there sent me to the gite. It was in a massive building behind the church. Maybe 25 tall steps up to the second ( first to them) floor. A door so heavy that I could not actually figure out how to open it when I was trying to leave. The hospitalera was tiny, under 5’ and quite elderly. But somehow she got that door open and closed.

    There were a few other people there. A man and a woman came asking if a group of 12 could sleep there that night. They did not have reservations! The answer was no. Not surprisingly. Two young women were checking in. Another woman was picking up a new credencial because she has retired and is going to walk starting next week. Somehow those tasks took over half an hour. So I had time to look around. Incredible building. Will probably last another few hundred years. But was it freezing!!! Huge stones. Impossible to get warm. I felt bad for the young women who were going to sleep there. And relieved that I had chosen to book somewhere else.

    Dinner tonight at a wine bar with the Belgian woman who stayed in the same gite last night. So urban!

    Another 12 kilometers through the outskirts on the other side of town tomorrow before getting back into the countryside.    Read more

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    Chateau d'eau1One of the first markers I noticed today.Massive regional administration campus2111

    Day 5 Montpellier to Montarnaud, 20 km

    April 1 in France ⋅ ⛅ 12 °C

    Yet another late start! The coffee shop near the hotel did not open until 8:30. Then I went to the supermarket to get my usual banana/clementine/yoghurt breakfast. And then I decided to tape my foot (for the tendon on the top) and that meant I had to watch the how-to-put-KT-tape-on video. Etc. I didn’t get away until 10:00. Again! But I knew I had to wait until 4:00 to check-in to the gite, so it was fine. Beautiful day. Sunny and still windy, but normal strong wind, not outrageous strong wind like the other day.

    No Camino markers for ages in the city. I was constantly checking the gps tracks. The exit from the city goes via a string of huge monuments. A triumphal arch. A massive statue of Louis XIV on horseback. A “chateau d’eau.” An aqueduct. All of them as impressive as they were designed to be.

    As with the way into the city, the way out was not terrible. It was not even all asphalt. Some shady pathways that feel like little secrets in busy neighbourhoods. Parks, including one with a small lake that was part of the grounds of some kind of huge 1960s or 70s regional administrative building. There were some groups of children there who were maybe doing some kind of nature study.

    At one point I came to a spot where the path was blocked off by a fence. I got to the traffic light across from it at the same time as a young man who saw me trying to figure out what to do. He pointed to a small road beside the fence and said it is okay to go this way and I will walk with you. We walked together about ten minutes. A nice interaction after his serendipitous appearance!

    Being in more built up places definitely makes it harder to find a place to pee! I ended up going to a cafe and ordering a small coffee so I could use the bathroom. Clearly not an ideal system. Also not an ideal coffee. If you want milk in your coffee in France, there are two ways to order it at a regular cafe. Cafe crème, which is more or less cappuccino size, but often comes with too much milk. The second option is called cafe noisette (hazelnut) because of the colour. It often has barely any milk. I would like something in the middle please. Unlike Spain, there is not a drinkable coffee anywhere you go.

    The landscape today, after the outskirts, was starting to have some small ups and downs. It’s rocky and dry. But there were quite a few flowers. A river with small waterfalls. Some brooks. Lots of horses. A humongous solar farm that took me about 10 minutes to walk past it.

    I am staying at a private gite tonight. About a kilometer past the village, which will make tomorrow a tiny bit shorter! There’s a German woman also staying. The owner joined us for dinner. She is ending her business after this year. It really seems like she has had it! We got to wash our clothes in the machine! There are only the two of us so we each got to take our own room. I have the heat blasting! At the very last minute I decided to bring a light fleece rather than the long sleeved t-shirt I would normally bring. It is heavier and, more important, takes up more room in my not huge pack, but I have basically been living in it. It was a good decision!

    Tomorrow I will walk to Saint- Guilhem-de-Desert. It is supposed to be very very pretty.    Read more

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    Obligatory morning shadow photo
    Big huge bag of water. For the sheep?1This photo of water moving/storage is for Elaine and NedRiver gorge112

    Day 6 Montarnaud to Saint-Guilhem, 22km

    April 2 in France ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C

    Beautiful day. Lots of flowers, smell of broom (I think). Things are starting to get a bit more nature-y.

    It seemed pretty clear that the woman who runs this morning’s gite was not feeling well and needed us to get going. I was out by 9 so I am getting bit speedier at getting ready! The path went up right away. Something that hasn’t happened here yet!Lots of rocks. A lake that I think — but I might be making this up — was once a bauxite quarry. Lots of thigh-high rosemary bushes and tons of flowering thyme.

    I walked for part of the morning with a French woman who lives in Spain. Nice to have company. We stopped for lunch in a village called Aniane. I had probably the best sandwich I have ever had in Europe. Roquefort, chevre, some marinated vegetables, onions and gorgeous lettuce.

    Eventually at lunch there were 5 of us. And the theme of the day was how much food we need to buy and where for the next few days. We need to sort things out for some long stretches between small places with no services. Also Easter Sunday. Easter Monday (a holiday here). There are bound to be some some glitches.

    At the end of the day the last few kilometres are following a river and its gorge. Very dramatic. Turquoise water. Falls. Rapids. Rocks. More wind! The path goes along the edge of the road beside a (in some places) a guardrail that is used not one high. I found it nerve-wracking. The drop to the river was not insignificant!

    Saint Guilhem is indeed very beautiful as promised. I’m staying in a private room in a gîte. It’s a very comfortable place. In the big room there is a jigsaw puzzle partly done on a table!

    For some reason several places were closed for dinner tonight. Last night the woman who sold Benedicta a pizza in Montarnaud told B she would need to reserve somewhere tonight. She was right Eventually 5 of us got added to B’s reservation. Great dinner in a hotel dining room with a “closed” sign on the door and a schnauzer standing guard outside.    Read more

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    1
    23Caterpillars!11

    Day 7 St-Guilhem to St J Blaquière, 27k

    April 3 in France ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C

    Spectacular day! Blue skies, big views, impeccably maintained trail, a mid-day cafe, a good dinner, and a typical municipal gîte run by really kind people. All the guides said it would be 22 km today. But at the end of the day all the Apple watches and gps things (except my under-estimating phone) said it was closer to 28. It did feel long by the end — the last two kilometers are always endless!

    There was a lot of up today! Lots of stones. And a long, long down late in the day. But the trail underfoot this morning was amazing. No erosion. No obstacles. It started going up immediately. Up and over a small mountain? A big big hill? It took about an hour and a half to get to the highest point. The views on the way up were of green hills, some rocky ridges, a river. The views over the other side were of a wide flat plain with mountains way in the distance and, I think, a few flashes of the Mediterranean.

    Highlights — the broom, a weird long train of caterpillars that was more than two metres long — some tiny daffodils, a nice stop for limonade on a shady terrace, a donkey sleeping standing up, and this final village, Saint-Jean-de-la-Blaquiere. Stones, a big square, beautiful church, arches and alleys. Three of us arrived at the same time.

    The instructions were to go to the town hall to pay and register. Door to the gîte is always open. No key. Like everyone, the woman there was very kind. Full of information, making sure everyone was okay. A volunteer takes the reservations on her phone. And then a woman is paid by the village to clean. It’s spotless. Very simple, old building. Two small rooms. Mostly bunk beds but no one has to sleep on top.

    We are 6. All women. Two young women on their first walk. They both have horrible blisters. Everyone else is trying to get them to stay sitting. Only two of us are walking more than a few days.

    The dinner arrangements here: the woman who owns the small store makes individual servings of lasagna. Yesterday we called to reserve, and today we went and picked them up. Tiramisu for dessert. 10 euros for the meal. It was fab.

    It’s Good Friday but not a holiday!

    Tomorrow is short and ends in a small city. No food logistics to manage.    Read more

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    First view of the Pyrenees way in the distance1

    Day 8 St J Blaquiere to Lodeve, 15 km

    April 3 in France ⋅ 🌬 18 °C

    Short hard étape today but excellent views in perfect weather. I spent the morning trying to sort out what I am going to do tomorrow. There was a very long serious uphill that helped me decide. The normal stage tomorrow is 27 km, lots of elevation. Same thing with 28 km the day after. As I was trudging up a super stony track that seemed like it was not going to end, I thought, I don’t want to do two really hard days in a row, despite spectacular views. So tomorrow I’ll do a variant that cuts 9 km and a few hundred meters of elevation. And then the hard, spectacular day that follows will be a tiny bit easier. It was inordinately hard to decide that!

    More incredible views today. Most of the morning was spent going up. Many false tops. Then finally a long flat part and then a long, long, long stony downhill and the longest last two kilometres ever. One small village. And one super amazing panoramic view.

    Hardly anyone out walking. I only saw one woman walking her dog.

    I ran into Benedicta just before the last bit of walking for the day. Both of us thought we would have been done sooner. When we got to Lodeve, we had beers and huge salads.

    I’m staying at the gite across from the restaurant. Three rooms with two beds each. Five of us from last night are here. I got the room with the stranger, a man who does 40+ km days. He promised he does not snore but he’s snoring over there as I write this in the dark.

    Today I learned that it costs 6€ to get money from a bank machine.

    Lots (too much!) of the afternoon was spent trying to sort everyone’s plans for the next few days. It seems very hard to find transportation out of this area for those who are going to need to leave in the next few days. After a lot of discussion, the man who runs the gîte got me a reservation for tomorrow. Single room. Demi pension.

    Everyone came for a glass of wine that turned into dinner. Today was the first day it felt warm enough to me (not to French people) to sit outside. One of the owners of the bar/restaurant where we ate is English. We had her perfect fish pie for dinner.

    Stephan, who is going to walk over 50 km (!!!) tomorrow because of a lack of sleeping options, will be leaving at 6. I will try to get across the street for coffee at 8!    Read more

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    11Fancy restaurant with a private bridge over the riverView from my room2Dinner for one

    Day 9 Lodeve to St Martin d’Orb, 25 km

    April 5 in France ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Another blue sky day with big hills and fantastic views. The day started early when the alarm of the guy who walks long days went off at 5:30. I did not get back to sleep. He was out starting his 56 km day by 6:00. The rest of us were much slower.

    Quick breakfast (banana and kefir) in the gite. Bad coffee at the boulangerie across the street. And then out of the town and pretty shortly going uphill. I was worried about missing views by taking the alternate route today. But the alternate did not start until halfway along, after the highest point. The climbing was mostly on a small track and was a good surface. It was long but not terrible. Though the lack of wind (!!!) did make it hot. Then a good hour walking along the top with spectacular views to the south. At the turnoff for the variant, the main route goes northwest, the variant goes southwest. On a north-facing slope I was back in early spring. Deciduous trees with their leaves just starting to bud. Another great view.

    Even the variant had a variant. I took the longer path that, I think, had easier walking and for which I had a GPS track. The other option was shorter, following a small river, lots of rocks. There were day hikers out on Easter Sunday. And a couple of groups of trail runners and a few cyclists. Tge most people I have seen.

    The main etape ends in the very pretty village of Lunas. I met up with Benedicta there and we sat on the terrace of a fairly fancy restaurant and had a panaché (the beer and lemonade drink). Then we kept walking for another 4 km, which means we cut tomorrow’s 28 down to 24. Benedicta is staying at a different gite with one of the young women who have a lot of blisters - the other has gone home (not because of the blisters). I am at a private gite just at the edge of the village, right st the start of tomorrow’s hill, which will go to 977 metres or something like that.

    By some kind of miracle I have a private room and I got to have dinner alone. And I was able to make a cup of black tea with milk! Very nice gite. There is a young Irish woman staying here too.

    The plan is to leave earlier tomorrow! We’ll see!    Read more

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    1211

    Day 10 St M d’Orb to St Gerv. s. M, 25k

    April 6 in France ⋅ ⛅ 10 °C

    Saint-Martin d’Orb to Saint-Gervais-sur- Mare.

    There was almost 700 metres of elevation today. My phone says I only did 11 floors! So mean.

    About 30 metres after leaving the gite, I was already walking on tip toes because the path was so steep. There was about 90 minutes of climbing up a steep rocky path, and then most of the day was spent on forest tracks that went up and down and in every direction. All day had spectacular views. Literally in every direction. Once the path got more or less at the top, the walking was relatively easy. Alternating ups and downs for about 5 hours. Over about 5 or 6 small passes. I felt much better than yesterday. Not quite peppy but not dragging. But the heat at the end of the day was definitely getting beyond my comfort zone. Today I left at 8:15. Tomorrow I will aim for 7:15.

    Lots of forests, even at the tops. Sometimes shade. Some of the valleys had no leaves at all yet. Gazillions of trees down. Mostly pines and mostly, but not always, in the plantation forests. There was some scrambling to get around some of them. Tons of birds. Excellent (and only one of two all day) picnic table in the shade for lunch. A cool shelter later on that I forget to take a picture of.

    The first water and buildings were 21 km in. This is Gronze’s favourite etape of the whole itinerary. I will reserve judgement but it was really good. The views were the highlight, of course. But maybe the North American is not quite as enamoured of the plantation forests. Though there were fantastic beech forests too.

    The usual steep, rocky descent to the village that goes on forever. I am staying with the three other women in a kind of family unit in a lodging place run by the village. One bunk bed, one fold out couch and a separate room with double bed. I was here first and just took the bottom bunk because I did not want to have to be part of the decision of who got the room.

    The only place open for food today was the local museum, which sells regional products. None of which were suitable for dinner! We bought a bottle of wine and some fancy crackers and then bought things from the little food cupboard at the gite. I got a weird and not entirely pleasant tuna and bean salad in a can. Not recommended.

    The big drama today was that the Irish girl from last night’s gite left without paying. The owners left a note for her on the kitchen table asking her to leave her payment there. I did not realize she had left before me. There was no money on the table. But eventually I caught up to her. I asked if she had seen the note, and she said no. Did she leave their money in her room? Nope.

    She did not seem prepared at all for the walk today. One of the other women saw her later and gave her a bottle of water because she had no water. She had also broken her sandals. The two women who came after that did not see her. The person who let me into the gite asked if I was Katie. So she intended to stay here. Worrisome and annoying.

    Tomorrow is shorter but higher. And then that is the end of these mountains I think.    Read more

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    Day 11, To Murat-sur-Vèbre, 22 km

    April 7 in France ⋅ ☀️ 9 °C

    Saint-Gervais-Sur-Mare to Murat-sur-Vèbre. 22 km plus the 2.5 extra when I was looking for my watch! 🤦🏻‍♀️

    Today was shorter than yesterday, but it was higher and harder. I had planned to leave early to avoid the heat. Leaving before everyone else is a hard thing in a shared room - having your things organized and ready to go, trying not to make noise, not turning on the light. Tricky! But two of us, Cyri’elle and I, were both awake before my alarm went off because we were freezing. Someone else had opened the window in the middle of the night. And then Benedicta and Emilie were up too. (They both left today.) And there was a bit of getting ready chaos. I think B and I left at 7:20 or so. Pretty good! She planned to hitch hike to the closest place with a train station.

    We went to the boulangerie to get pain chocolate, something for lunch, and coffee. They’d run out of take out cups but let us use cups from their kitchen. When we were outside having our coffees I noticed I did not have my watch on. I’ll spare you the small panic details but they added two and a half kilometres to the start of the day, and I still left town with no watch. I lost the watch that today’s missing watch replaced on a backpacking trip. So this was feeling ridiculously familiar. End of today’s story - I found the watch at the very bottom of my pack when I got to the gite this afternoon. What was it doing there?

    All the fussing meant that I didn’t get away until about 8:20. I started out following the markings for a different GR. But not for long. And then the steep, rocky climbing started, as it has every day in this section, just outside the village.. The chemin went up in the morning. Way up before lunch. And way up again just after lunch. Today’s top was at 1000 metres. There was a lot of cursing at the GR designers. Biggest complaint of the day was that they drag you up what is the tallest mountain of the Massif Central on this route and the trail tops out in the trees! No view. What were they thinking?????

    There were views before that. Huge ones. But the highlight of the day was the hillsides covered in beech trees with their buds just about to break. And all the streams and little waterfalls.

    I played leap frog all day with Cyri’elle, one of the women I stayed with last night. We stopped for lunch at farm that was almost at the top and had something to drink while a very odd pig nosed around us and our stuff.

    And then finally we were out of the mountains into a green world. I can’t say I am not relieved. It will be nice to just walk!

    Staying tonight at a private gîte. Cyri’elle moved here when she found out she was going to be alone in the municipal gîte. There is another French woman here who is doing the whole Chemin d’Arles and the Camino Aragones, like me. But she is going to go much faster. She has a chart where she fills in her accommodation and mileage. The gîte has excellent heat!    Read more

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    1112This is the gite tonight1Bird posters all over the village

    Day 12 to La Salvetat-sur-Agout, 21 km

    April 7 in France ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Today is brought to you by the colour green. With supporting roles played by water, yellow flowers, and church bells.

    It could not have been more perfect weather. I wore my gloves for about an hour first thing this morning, my jacket until I had lunch. It got warm in the afternoon but not too warm.

    A lot of the day was spent following rivers. There were lots of little streams running down the hillsides to meet them. Brooks, creeks, streams - I’m realizing I don’t know the difference. But there was a lot of running water. And then for about an hour the chemin goes along the shore of a “lake.” It was really a reservoir. And while it’s beautiful to see water (and it seems the lake is a big deal), the lakeshore felt very sterile to me. So I asked at the tourist office later, when I was checking in to the gite - was that actually a lake? Well, no. And, yes, they dynamited the houses and drowned the villages. Apparently someone local, who would be about my age, and was a child in one of the villages when this happened in the 1960s, wrote a book about it.

    Only one very tiny village en route today, we’d call it a hamlet. Ho uses, some animal enclosures, a big church. The bells were ringing as I passed through. There had also been bells chiming earlier. Very cool to be walking in the forest and to hear them.

    Despite everything getting flatter today, it was still pretty hilly. More beech forests - one with daffodils. Lots of moss-covered stone walls, the semi tidy ones. And eventually up and over the biggest hill of the day to get a view of another reservoir. And then past some impressive forsythias in people’s gardens. And down a small road, lined st various points, with huge dandelions.

    This village is big enough to have a few stores and a cafe-bar that stays open all afternoon. I had a post-walk panaché and then took another stab at perfecting the coffee order: allongé with milk on the side. That was good! It won’t work everywhere but good to know.

    I’m staying in the gite communal, the municipal gite. Massive old presbytery. Thick, thick walls and glacial cold as soon as you open the door. The sleeping rooms are upstairs and thankfully not cold. There are three of us here tonight - the same as last night. The young woman Cyri’elle who has been on the same itinerary as me for days now, and Florence, who is probably more or less my age and is from Brittany and will be doing my next three days in two. Three pilgrims, three bedrooms (each with two beds). We each get our own room.

    Gourmet meal from the tiny supermarket: a carrot, a tetrapack of fairly good vegetable soup, bread, a very soft blue cheese (not Roquefort, which comes from here) chosen because it was in the smallest package, and two little containers of yoghurt. I’ll have the other two for breakfast. Have I complained yet about having to eat first thing in the morning? Ugh.

    I’m pretty happy with how everything is feeling. Shoes remain great and worth the drive to Ottawa to get them. Knees are good. Achilles is happy.

    Tomorrow is longer but, I am ever hopeful, flatter. And maybe a coffee stop early afternoon???    Read more

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    Day 13 to Boisset, 30 km

    April 9 in France ⋅ ☀️ 10 °C

    La Salvetat-sur-Agout to Boisset

    Long, beautiful day to a gite a little ways out of the village of Boisset.

    I finally managed to get out the door before 7:30. Quick stop at the boulangerie for a pain aux raisins, which is way better than it sounds. Gloves on and hood up, it was chilly.

    Leaving Salvetat this morning was a mess. GR markings are leading one way, the gps tracks on not one but three apps are leading another way. I assumed this was another case of one village with two different GRs. But then there were no markings at all along the route I was following. Eventually I caught up to Florence who figured out they have moved the GR, presumably to get it off the road . Traffic was not bad this morning and I think we were early enough that walking on the road did not seem dangerous. The new route looks like it might add a few kilometres. I was happy not to have them.

    Most of the walk was through plantation forests - beech and maybe hemlock? No undergrowth, no middle story. But the shade was good. At home we talk about hiking on trails that are all rocks and roots. Here it is rocks and sticks. Every so often these trails are just covered with sticks, which, of course, sometimes roll when you step on them. They also make the trail feel messy.

    I had just been thinking that I have seen no small animals. But then I did — something that looked like a mink but maybe bigger and a deer. And then later when I was having a croissant on a bench, a mouse came for the crumbs. . Coolest thing today was a weird plant that the internet says is purple toothwort, a parasitic plant that grows on the roots of other plants and has no chlorophyll. There was just one clump. Oh, and I finally saw a menhir, a standing stone. (Yesterday’s gite was Gite L’etape les Menhirs.)

    Quick stop in Anglés, a drab village, for a croissant and a cold drink from the supermarket. There were unlocked public toilets behind the village hall, which does not happen that often here, unlike Spain, where they are everywhere and mostly very clean. These ones were the hole in the floor kind, which, thankfully one does not see that often any more.

    Lots of the houses in Anglés have outside walls covered in thin slate tiles. Apparently, it is to protect the house from humidity or moisture.

    Leaving the village there was a great chorus of frogs. And then two more hours through the forest. The last section of woods actually had a bit more diversity it.

    Lots of info panels here about US paratroopers in the area in WW2. Honestly, I was so hot I didn’t read them but I took pictures for later. The woman who owns this gite has a sign up here too. She said the family of a paratrooper who stayed (I think) in this house came to stay recently.

    This house is beautiful in bucolic surroundings. Lots of animals. Goats, sheep, cows, weird beauty queen chickens and normal chickens, a bunch of cats, some dogs, two donkeys. There is a dog agility course in the back, and the woman’s daughter runs a pet sitting business.

    Two rooms, three of us. I got to have the room with the double bed. Age? Language? Maybe also Florence just being nice. She arrived first and took a bed in the other room. I did not argue; this room is beautiful. As they say on Escape to the Country, it has a dual aspect.

    Tomorrow I am going to another rural gite that is a few kilometres off the chemin. It puts me closer to Castre on Saturday. I think tomorrow is about 20 and then Saturday will only be 12.    Read more

  • mary louise adamsChemin d’Arlesmary louise adams
    BoissezonTiny bits rock2Vinyl cafe!1Out my windowTreehouse/yurt2

    Day 14 to Lavergne (Noailhac), 23 km

    April 10 in France ⋅ ☁️ 9 °C

    Boisset to Lavergne

    From one farm to another today. I said bye to Florence this morning. She will be walking longer days than me today and tomorrow. Also said bye to the huge Newfoundland dog that was staying at the gite. And later in the day, bye Cyri’elle who went to the outskirts of Castres today and, I think, is going back home tomorrow.

    Amazingly, there were clouds this morning. Fantastic! Cool. I got to walk without my dorky hat! I actually saw 2 couples (at different times) out for a walk on the path. One of the people said that yesterday, if we’d been standing where we were, we would have seen the Pyrenees. Not today. Instead I saw two deers and heard my first cuckoo for this year.

    At Boisset it is still pretty high up at 770 metres. And while there were some small hills the general effect was down. And not too steeply for the most part. So pretty easy walking in very favourable weather. The sun did come out eventually.

    Often when you come to a trail intersection, there are so many signs that you really have to know where you’re going. You have to know not just the name of the place where you will end for the day, but the name of the next village, which I don’t always pay attention to. And the names of the villages are often very similar. So you can’t just remember that it was the one that started with “Bo….” , because there might be several of them on the same post! I ran into Cyri’elle mid-day. She lost an hour by following signs for the wrong GR, most of that going uphill. I check the gps track obsessively. In general the marking is good, but!

    Two villages today, but we had been told we would find nowhere for food - no supermarket or cafe/bar, just a pharmacy in Boissezon. I stopped at the Mairie in Boissezon for a stamp and, just in case, to ask if there was anywhere to get a coffee. The woman I spoke with checked with someone in another room and then gave me an address, but she did not mention the name. At the address she gave me, there was a crepe place, Galletterie et Vinyl. But it was closed. So I went and sat on a bench across the street. A few minutes later a man came out and asked if I was the person the Mairie had sent? Come in! Super style-y guy. Funky clothes, groovy glasses, serious tattoos.

    In a town without a grocery store it turns out there is a crepe place that is also the space for a huge record collection. Thousands of albums and 45s. Apparently over 100,000. Mostly 45s. All organized alphabetically by artist. They sell them online.

    I had time to kill before I could arrive at tonight’s farm, so I had a crepe and a coffee. A totally unexpected stop!

    The farm where I am staying is 4 km off the GR. I was trepidatious as I was trudging up the last hills. But it’s fabulous. Massive old farmhouse. There is a gite but it was already full for tonight so I have my own room in the house. It’s a place that has clearly been full of projects. 35 years of renovations and maintenance, but also funky art and garden projects. Ponds to recycle water from the house. Sculptures. A treehouse/yurt thing. And the best thing: the ponds are home to frogs! They have a lot to say.

    Excellent dinner. Same soup as last night, and same kind of stew as last night. But while I really did not enjoy last night’s meal (full of cloves), today’s was excellent. And after the stew, salad from the garden and then strawberries with soft, fresh cheese. Perfect!

    The point of staying here, apart from staying at another farm, was to let me get to Castres in the morning so I can see the market. Several days ago I booked a room for myself in the city not knowing I would end up, even in gites, with 3 nights in row of single rooms. Fancy trip!    Read more

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    11

    Day 15 to Castres, 12 km

    April 11 in France ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Laverne to Castres

    Very quiet night last night. Eventually the frogs stopped talking to each other. The people staying in the gite (and the reason I got my own room) arrived around 10 pm, a group of women on a roller derby team who had come to play a match tonight in Castres.

    Very short day today. Nothing particularly special about the walk. The woman from the gite and her dog walked with me up the hill to the road. And then about 3 km later I was back on the chemin, a few kilometres further along then where I left it. As I was coming into Castres the sky clouded over and there were a few minutes of rain! Light rain but rain. The forecast is for rain tomorrow afternoon and more rain Monday morning. One of this afternoon’s city chores was to buy rubber gloves to put over my other gloves. It’s also supposed to get cooler.

    Quiet day in Castres, population a little over 40,000. I was here by 10:30. Had a pretty good coffee, wandered around the Saturday food market. Had a picnic lunch (strawberries, cheese, olives, bread) in a park, where a little boy gave me a chestnut leaf. Bought breakfast for tomorrow. Got money from a bank machine. Pretty much all the accommodations I’ve been staying at want cash. But cash machines are not everywhere! I try not to do the conversion of the amount of money I have been carrying around every day.

    I spent most of the afternoon and evening lying on my bed trying to sort out the next few days where there are choices to make between the GR and variants, and where there are not plentiful accommodation options. The main decision later this week will be whether to follow the GR or to follow the Cansl du Midi to Toulouse. I think I have organized things so I can change my mind at the last minute. In any case I was not a good tourist here. I did not, for instance, go to the apparently very good Goya museum of Spanish art.

    I am staying in a huge, soulless, unstaffed hotel. You need a code to get the code to get into your room. It could not be more different than yesterday’s gite.

    I went to a small Thai restaurant for dinner. Without a reservation. The woman at the door says, sorry, we are full. All reserved. But then she looks at me and says,, come in. Can you eat fast? Generally the answer to that is no. But I said, sure! I ordered brochettes. She said, no! They take too long. You want chicken? I said chicken, vegetables, rice? It was fantastic (but not cheap). And I was gone before they needed the table.

    The word is that the exit to Castres is dicey on a busy road. Tomorrow is Sunday and I will leave early so I am not that worried. Tomorrow night I am staying at an abbey with nuns.    Read more

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    Day 16 Castres to Dourgne, 21 km

    April 12 in France ⋅ ☁️ 7 °C

    It’s been raining, spitting really, all day. One of the things I did before I left home was to send my newish pack back to the manufacturer (Durston gear in Golden, BC) to get two small repairs ( which they did for free and sent back in very good time despite the person who does the work having been off sick). One of the repairs was to retape the seams. The fabric the pack is made of is waterproof. But last year, walking in torrential rain in Portugal, water was clearly getting in. Today it was not raining nearly that hard, but I’m still really pleased the inside of the pack is dry! I use a liner (aka a garbage bag) and dry bags for almost everything, so it’s overkill. But nice that it’s working!

    Very quiet walk today. It’s Sunday, I left relatively early, and this is not a busy landscape. I was passed by three women out cycling. And about 800 metres from the end I met a woman (who had spent a year in Milton, Ontario, of all places) who was out walking her fox terrier.

    On a weekday I can see that the exit from Castres would be frightening. Two-lane road going into the city, no shoulder. One confusing roundabout. Today it was fine. Mid morning I decided to shave a kilometre off the GR route and follow a small road directly into a big village where I hoped to, finally, get a coffee. The GR went to the left and made a big wide semi circle before joining back with the road a few kilometres later. I went straight. Within about 100 metres a car stopped to tell me I was mistaken. I explained I was in a hurry for coffee, and he went on. A few minutes later I started seeing GR markers. So did the chemin used to go down the road? Was it rerouted for safety reasons? Or maybe local people found the pilgrims annoying? It was a pretty prosperous-looking area. Big houses behind gates. And at the bottom of the hill, a bar with coffee! At 10:30 on a Sunday. That’s a miracle. And across from the bar - a boulangerie. I took a good long break.

    The next section was similar. Mostly on tiny paved roads and farm tracks, several of which had turned to mud. And one of which was a long straight line of knee-high, dripping wet grass. Within about 30 seconds my shoes were soaked.

    After the soakers, came the woman with a red umbrella and the fox terrier. And then about 10 minutes after that, the Abbaye Sainte Scholastique. What another fab place to stay.

    This is huge Benedictine convent. Just after I got here it started to rain much harder, so I have not explored the outside, but I’ll post a photo of a postcard that shows the whole building. It’s not that old in local terms. Founded and built in the late 1800s. I was greeted at the door by one of the Sisters who gave me a tour and instructions. I am the only pilgrim tonight, so once again I get to have my own room. With its own bathroom. And it’s a nice room, with a 1970s dorm-room vibe. Spotless. Miracle #2.

    One of my knees is bugging me a bit today. So I spent a good chunk of the afternoon stretching and doing some other exercises. Then I went to Vespers at 5:30. There were 21 nuns there. It was all sung (is it always only sung? Everywhere?). The church is large but very simple. There were maybe 10 of us there besides the nuns.

    I had dinner with the other 6 people who are staying here. A couple who come a few times a year for some quiet. A couple from Quebec who are here volunteering for a month. A woman who I think is doing a kind of retreat. And a young woman here to study for her exams. The huge record collection and creperie where I went the other day in Boissezon — it used to be her grandmother‘s house!

    There is barely any cell service here. So if you see this before tomorrow that will be another miracle!    Read more

  • mary louise adamsChemin d’Arlesmary louise adams
    SorèzeStart of the canal1Chess beside the canal1Go straight or 1.5 km around this "lake"1Road to the gite. Only hill of the day.Ruined abbey turned recycling stationGate to the gite

    Day 17 Dourgne to Les Cassés, 35 km

    April 13 in France ⋅ ☁️ 5 °C

    Another drizzly day. A long easy walk. A grumbling knee. An inadvertent and a planned shortcut. An okay coffee and pain aux raisins around 11. A sweet, winding canal built in the late 1600s. And a great gite at the end of it all.

    Today a lot of the chemin really was flat. Finally. Just point yourself in the right direction and walk. It was cold enough to keep both jackets on all day long. Another long stretch of soaking grass and thus wet socks. There were two sizable towns before mid day and then it was all canal until just before the turnoff for the gite (a km off the chemin). About 4 hours.

    The little canal is called La Rigole de la Plaine and it was built to keep the Canal de Midi supplied with water. Lots of park amenities along it through the town and then just the canal, the path, some cool bridges, and trees.

    Despite my best intentions and because they ask you to clean your room well, I did not get out of the Abbaye until almost 8. I got here around 4:30. There wasn’t really anywhere to sit all afternoon, so I just kept going, trying to imagine a bench into existence. Close to the end of the day, the GR turns right to make a scenic loop around what I assume is a reservoir. Walking straight, which I did, lets you save 1.5 km. Because it was not hot, my feet were perfectly fine after the long day.

    Another night with my own huge, spotless room at gite LaPasseur-Elle. You cross a little bridge to get to the gate into the back garden. Fantastic dinner (vegetable soup,as every night, though they are all different; pasta gratin, aka baked Mac and cheese; sausage particular to one of the towns I walked through today; simple salad from the garden; fruit crumble). The owner has walked all sorts of caminos.

    Tomorrow I will follow the tiny canal pretty much all day, until it empties into the bigger, busier canal du midi, which I will follow for two days to Toulouse. Flatter and shorter than the main GR route but shady. Also more boats! The people who write the notes on Gronze cannot hide their disdain for those who follow the canal! A true pilgrim would surely climb some more hills!    Read more

  • mary louise adamsChemin d’Arlesmary louise adams
    Under the clouds - mountains!
    There is a dog in there, swimming1Mountains!1More mountains!Basin of Naurouze1Canal du Midi1The hill I did not go up at the end of the day

    Day 18 to Avignonet-Lauragais, 24 km

    April 14 in France ⋅ ☀️ 7 °C

    Les Cassés to Avignonet-Lauragais

    Today was more of the tiny canal, La Rigole de la Plaine. A lot more. Probably 19 or 20 km. Very easy walking. It was a gorgeous day. And I got glimpses of the snowy Pyrenees off and on all day! And I actually saw other people. Lots of cyclists, all of whom were going in the opposite direction. A man walking the chemin in the other direction. Two men out fishing for rainbow trout. I talked to them long enough to need to pull up my hood and put on my gloves. There were a couple of joggers and some people walking their dogs, including a man whose nephew has just moved from Ottawa to the Laurentians, north of Montreal and become a Canadian citizen. And then there was the birder. Completely decked out in camouflage. Including a kind of buff on her head and netting that fit around her face and covered her neck, the same shape as whatever it is you call the thing that knights wore on their heads. When I first saw her, I thought it was someone living rough, carrying a big pack and a big walking stick. But, the walking stick was a tripod and the pack was a camera bag. When I got closer I saw the camera with the huge lens. She was looking for black woodpeckers. She told me about all the woodpeckers that live here, showing me pictures on her camera and looking them up on the Internet and checking to see the range and if they might also live in Canada. She thinks there is a lack of respect for wildlife in France. She also said that the 20 to maybe 40 metre wide wooded corridor along the Rigole canal is one of the places she can find the most ecological diversity. .

    Eventually the little canal joins the big one, the Canal du Midi. There is a kind interpretive area and an obelisk marking this feat of 17thC engineering - but there was a lot of construction going on around it so I just kept going. The highest point of the canal, the Naurouze basin, is where the small canal, the Rigole, “feeds” water to the big canal. This is also “la ligne de partage des eaux,” the line separating water that flows to the Atlantic and water that flows to the Mediterranean. (The story is that the designer of the canal noticed a spring that produced two rivulets flowing to different watersheds.) His plan was to send water into the big canal at this point so it would be distributed both to the east and to the west. But then I also read that the lock going to the west was closed, so the water now just goes east to the Mediterranean. I think?????

    After the Naurouze basin, the pilgrim goes out onto the path along the Canal du Midi. I will follow it for two days to Toulouse - and try not to get run over by bicycles!

    Tonight I’m in an Airbnb because the gite was quite a distance from the Chemin. Dinner was a sandwich and an apple tart from the bakery, which is the only source of food in the village. I’ve been enjoying the couch!    Read more

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    1Autoroute just Nextdoor1113Gite11

    Day 19 to Ayguesvives, 20 km

    April 15 in France ⋅ ☀️ 9 °C

    Avignonet-Lauragais to Ayguesvives, or the Écluse de Sangliers, along the Canal du Midi

    Very very very nice day. Easy, bucolic, and blessed by perfect spring weather. I spent the whole day walking on the north side of the big canal. Incredibly I did not get bowled over by any of the many cyclists, who to a person do not use bells or words to warn you that they are coming. The only person who actually rang their bell when they passed was a little boy of maybe 8.

    No getting away from the fact that the whole path is paved. And it runs parallel to the autoroute, at times getting very close. But I still really enjoyed it. I did not really miss the 25 km of crops that Gronze wanted me to walk through.

    Lots of ducks. A lot of unidentified by me songbirds. Three rodenty creatures I thought were maybe muskrats.

    Busy canal means there was a coffee en route. But there was only the one cafe today. Closer to Toulouse there are apparently more. There were lots of benches and tables. In a few places the rest spots on the canal path had gates leading to service centres on the autoroute.

    I left at 9 and really took my time to make sure I did not arrive at the gite before 3. It’s run by volunteers who come for a week. It’s run by the same association that runs the gite in Revel and the brand new, just opened gite in Toulouse, that people have been telling us about. The couple who are here this week were in Revel earlier and will go to Toulouse for a week later on.

    The gite is right beside the lock of the wild boars! Very cool to watch boats going through. The locks are automated now. You pull into the basin, someone jumps off the boat and enters info into what looks like a parking meter. And then gates open and close, etc. and off you go. But one time it did not work and the people had to wait for a canal employee to come.

    Huge dinner here. It started with a glass of wine and crackers. And then went on for more than 2 hours! I was fading. There are two of us here. Me and a Swiss man who walks with a little trailer.

    My knee was very unhappy this morning. But after an hour it felt much better and now it feels way better still. Fingers crossed that it stays that way.

    I think tomorrow is a lot of city outskirts. Toulouse is the 4th or 5th largest city in France by population, depending on where you look. And then there will be a fancy coffee, a bath, maybe a nice salade composèe, and the purchase of a tube of voltaren,    Read more

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    SycamoreThrough here to service centreCoffee spot2Lunch spot1Saint Sernin Basilica2

    Day 20 Ayguevives to Toulouse, 26 km

    April 15 in France ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    Gorgeous morning along the canal. My first goal of the day was to avoid the 2000 school children who were doing some kind of organized “solidarity walk” along the canal path today. Solidarity with what? At almost every lock there were water and snack stations set up for them. Huge piles of organic bananas at one. Stacked flat boxes of pains chocolate at another. Cake at another. They were walking 18 kilometres. Younger kids first. At the first water station I passed, the volunteers told me the kids were 20 minutes behind me. The thought of being stuck in the middle of them was pretty motivating for an hour or so.

    The next goal of the day was to find places to pee! Almost impossible. At one point I went through a gate and along a little boardwalk that linked the canal path to an autoroute service centre. Another time I stopped at a cafe. And then nothing - for hours - until the centre of the city.

    At first the path passed through semi-rural bedroom communities. And then it moved into the suburbs of Toulouse. Not the big box store kind of suburb but residence blocks (some may have been students dormitories), offices, and big institutional buildings. The biggest of these was the seriously fenced off Airbus campus, for lack of a better word. Apparently there will be more Airbus on the route out of the city. And when I started looking at the map, there are all sorts of aeronautical things here — Nationsl School of Aviation, Institut Superieur de l’aéronautique….

    At some point today I finally looked to see what species of tree lines the canal. Gazillions of them. One tree every 4 metres or so, often on both sides of the path. The phone said they are sycamores - but they are plane trees, which are related to sycamores. Should there ever be a bug…And apparently there is. Elaine of Elaine and Ned put a link in the comments.

    Closer to the city the canal path became a superhighway for runners. At times it was a steady stream. Midday. Full sun in a few places. But I liked the runners better than the cyclists without bells.

    After I checked in to the hotel and showered, I went for a very good coffee, got some voltaren for my knee, and went to the welcome centre for pilgrims in the Saint-Sernin Basilica (I just had to look up the difference between a basilica and a cathedral). I got a stamp, info and a map explaining the two possible routes for leaving the city, and a confirmed reservation for the next gite. The man phoned for me. He also gave me a second, different stamp so I would have one for tomorrow too.

    A glass of wine on a shady terrace and an excellent Vietnamese meal were about all the city I could manage tonight. I was happily back in the room by 8:00.

    Tomorrow I get to sleep in!    Read more

  • mary louise adamsChemin d’Arlesmary louise adams
    Coffee #22Old pilgrim hospital113

    Day 21 Toulouse

    April 17 in France ⋅ ☀️ 17 °C

    Lazy lazy day. I spent a lot of it trying to sort out what comes next. It’s not always obvious where to break up the stages. Gronze has at least one that ends in a place with no accommodation. What’s with that??? Tomorrow it will take the whole day to get out of the city. And my guess is that all of it will be on asphalt. Ugh. And then the question is whether the next 4 days are all kind of medium length or whether I do two short (to keep being nice to my knee) and two longer. I’ll decide tomorrow I guess. I will be interested to see if there really are more people walking after Toulouse.

    Besides adding up kilometers to plan stages, I also did my laundry. It took a lot of reading to figure out how it all worked. Pay at a digital screen over there to unlock access to the washer over here and to deliver soap powder into a little container on the other side of the room. Equivalent of $15 to wash and mostly dry a tiny bag of clothes.

    Most of the laundromats I have seen here also rent out space to package delivery lockers. I was the only person washing clothes, but probably 10 people came in and either dropped off or picked up packages while I was there.

    Thai food for dinner to make sure of getting vegetables. And then a very tiny scoop of mint - chocolate ice cream made with actual mint leaves.

    And then I walked back to the hotel along the river. Exceptionally well used public space. La fleuve Garonne flows northwest and into the Atlantic at Bordeaux. It’s already pretty big here. It must be impressive up there.    Read more

  • mary louise adamsChemin d’Arlesmary louise adams
    1It's not always pretty!Airplane stuff111

    Day 22 Toulouse to Léguevin, 23 km

    April 18 in France ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    I’m writing this on a terrace in front of the Maison St Jacques, an association gîte in the centre of a village that is very beige, but pleasant enough. (I expect people must commute from here to Toulouse.) The village has provided the house to the Association Jacquaire and volunteers take care of the gite. 8 volunteers and each one is responsible for greeting the pilgrims, cleaning and whatever else for 4 or 5 weeks over the season. That’s a lot of work! It’s a big old house. Good kitchen. Dormitory with 7 beds downstairs toilet and shower room upstairs. €10 a night.

    Long walk out of the city. I must have checked the track on my phone a million times. The route I took was not the GR and it is marked, but sparingly. Lots on concrete, more aerospace stuff, huge fences. Roundabout after roundabout. But then there was a town with good coffee and apple pastry. And then a village not too long after that. Another short break for a cold drink at a bar/tabac where I talked with a couple who were going out for their first rides on their brand new, matching, beautiful red bicycles. Quick stop in a church, out the other side of the village, and then finally off the asphalt as the chemin entered a really lovely woodland and followed a “biodiversity” path for a kilometer or two before heading back on the road to come down into Léguevin.

    For a long time I thought I would be staying here alone, but there are now 4 of us. Me, a straight coupe, he’s French and she’s American, and a Brazilian woman who lives in Munich. The first two are going to turn right at the Chemin de Piemont and go to St Jean Pied de Port, and the woman will turn at the same place and go to Lourdes.

    Tomorrow is long and it’s promising to be hot so everyone has agreed to get up early.

    And there’s a Sunday market that starts at 7 and apparently has a coffee roaster!    Read more

  • mary louise adamsChemin d’Arlesmary louise adams
    First break spot2Coffee shopPath12

    Day 23 Léguevin to Giscaro, 32 km

    April 19 in France ⋅ ☁️ 13 °C

    I finally managed to get out the door not too long after 7:00. Got a few good hours in before it started getting humid. Not the most inspiring walk today. A forest. Small country roads with pavement. Two small villages with public toilets (!) and a big village with coffee in a cafe designed for parents with small kids. It had playhouses and dress up clothes. Cloudy skies for most of the day. And a few less than ideal
    stretches, like the one where the chemin was buried under piles of sand that had something to do with autoroute renovation. A good lot of walking along things — the autoroute, train tracks, construction fencing. And still a fair bit of pavement. And then there was the truck, a big semi truck completely blocking a very rural bit of the chemin. You walk a bit down a hill and turn a bit and the entire track is blocked by a huge truck. Apparently with all the national highway construction going on, gps is very screwed up. And yet - at what point do you not think this mud track is not a place to drive this huge truck!?

    It was a long day. I finished around 4. My knee is still unhappy but not as unhappy as it was. The non paved non flat bits today were a good change. There are times I think, oh, it’s fine now. But then it changes its mind again.

    Fantastic gite. Out in the middle of nowhere. Geese and chickens and three cats. A pond with frogs. And everything you might need — epsom salts, a machine to spin the water out of clothes, a whole shelf of Asterix comics. Huge bins to keep your pack in - so all your unpacked stuff can fit in too. But I especially like the gingham duvet cover and real duvet.

    Excellent meal, lots of instructions about what’s ahead. Same 4 of us as last night. But the other three are going a different place tomorrow. . I spent a long time sorting out days and mileage. I have a plan that only has a few days over 30 and a few days below 20 for rests. And then I would have 3 extra “just in case” days. And maybe time to spend another day in Toulouse. I’m reading people’s posts about the mountains!    Read more

  • mary louise adamsChemin d’Arlesmary louise adams
    1
    1Key to the door carvingsLunch spotAnother good bench1Style-y giteOut the window

    Day 24 Giscaro to Montégut, 32 km

    April 20 in France ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    This app, like others, says, in the place where you start a post, “what have you been up to?” Again, the answer is walking. A lot of today’s walking was on wet feet. And wet feet led to one tiny blister. So annoying. There were stretches of long soaking wet grass and lots of mud. There was a bit of rain, enough to put on the rain jacket and sweat. But by early afternoon the sun was out and it got hot.

    At one point I arrived at the top of a hill, stepped out of the trees and onto a small paved road. Boiling hot. Needing to take off my jacket. A man in a truck slowed down —- I assume seeing someone walking with a pack in the middle of nowhere — to ask if I needed any help. I imagine I was that bedraggled!

    Mostly agricultural fields today. Grains. And ??? I have no idea. Lots of green. A number of small not fancy churches. Doors open but no lights. A few well placed benches. The villages in this region definitely providing some infrastructure for the pilgrims.

    Hills, uneven ground, and ibuprofen meant my knee was not bad. Today it was not the walking that did me in, it was the heat.

    I’m staying in the most stylish gite ever. In a village on a big hill. The morning will be up!

    As in other gites where I have taken demi pension, the owner ate with me. And like all of the other women, she had a small plate of salad while I had an enormous meal. They eat a big meal at lunch, but, still, these are very small plates!

    She is the first person who has mentioned the state of the world to me, asking what do Canadians think of the war? I do give the news a minute or two every day just to see where things are at.

    I left booking for tomorrow late … don’t know where I am sleeping tomorrow. There is no winging it in this route!!! We’ll see!    Read more

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