Martel

We completed our first day of walking and it was quite an introduction to this “department” in France called the Dordogne.
The walk today was slated to be 15 miles (yes, you read that correctly), but we opted to get a ride part way to shorten it to 10 miles. The first 5 miles or so were easy and we strolled by bucolic farm fields, cattle and horses with foals. The spring flowers, blooming trees and wildflowers were captivating between their visual beauty and the heady fragrances. We had smiles on our faces as we stopped to have our baguette and cheese for lunch, all the while ignoring the cliffs that were always looming in front of us. I said, “I think we are going to go to the top of those” and Jeff agreed, saying, “I’m sure we are”. .. We did.

The climb was quite steep and rocky, but the concerning part was that there was an impressive drop off next to the path. That is quite a challenge for 2 people who are both afraid of heights. So as we are cautiously climbing up a rock scramble, we see that there are other groups of hikers going up and down this treacherous path. Are they nuts? Oh no, we’re the ones who are nuts. We actually enjoy pushing ourselves a bit and did notice that most of the hikers were easily at least 20 years younger than us. As we looked at the route notes that guide us on our hike, we saw a term called a “balcony trail”. This is a narrow path with a steep drop off on one side. I was leaning so far to the land side while walking I think I am stuck that way.

In any case, we were tired upon arriving at our destination, but mostly mentally from focusing so hard. We managed to down a bottle of wine and dinner without incident.Read more