Walking in the Cele Valley

This would be our last day of walking, on to Cahors where the Cele Valley variant rejoins the main Camino path.

We had decided before we began that we would not walk all the way from Saint-Cirq-Lapopie to Cahors. It's a 38 km stage - which some do in one day and others in two days. We chose to walk about 18 kms to a small town - St Gery - about 1.5 kms off the Camino and take a bus to Cahors from there.

After a yummy breakfast at Auberge Sombral - coffee, OJ, yoghurt, pastries and home made confitures - it was time to go. We left Saint-Cirq-Lapopie around 8.45 and arrived in St Gery around 1-00pm - time to have lunch, relax in the shade and wait for the 2.30 bus. It was such a hot day, we were very pleased we'd made that decision.

When we set out, descending the 600 metre steep rocky path from Saint-Cirq was much easier and cooler than going up the afternoon before - but still those shiny rocks and loose stones to contend with. I was doing well, just taking things slowly. In fact, I've been surprised that I hadn't taken a tumble all week ... maybe I was thinking just that when I neared the bottom of the path and suddenly lost my footing. Hearing the sound of hiking shoes sliding on loose stones, and the clang of metal poles, Domi immediately turned around to see if I was ok. Thankfully, no harm done. I landed on my well padded bottom and all I had to show for my ungraceful fall was a slightly skinned elbow. Crisis averted.

Before long we were back along the river and the fabulous chemin de halage towpath was ahead. Just as we neared the beginning of this section, a large and very comfortable looking cruising boat was making its way through the lock. Domi and I are both fascinated by the workings of the locks - we've seen quite a few on various walks.

More photos - and a video - showing the walk under the towpath from the opposite direction and featuring bas-relief sculpture 'Le Lot' by Daniel Monnier. Simply beautiful. Wanting to learn more about the sculpture, I discovered this interesting article, where I also found the information on the towpath for an earlier post.

'Title: The beautiful bas-relief lines a sliver of a 19th-century walking path between two charming French villages.

On a hidden towpath, cut into a cliff along the Lot River, an unsigned bas-relief surprises hikers walking between the small villages of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie and Bouziès, in southwestern France. Carved directly into the rock, the relief was designed to merge seamlessly with the surrounding scenery and features ripples and shells, a three-foot-tall fish, and a small falcon.

For years, some hikers assumed the artist had died or mistakenly attributed the sculpture to André Breton, the cofounder of Surrealism who had owned a house nearby, or even linked it to the prehistoric drawings in the Perch Merle Caves less than two miles away.

But in 2018, over 30 years after the first part of the bas-relief was finished, the sculptor, Daniel Monnier, returned to the area and was invited to finish the last piece of his work, a polished stone “mirror” designed to reflect the water and sky.

Located in the Lot Valley, the towpath was carved between 1843 and 1847. For 30 years, horses and humans used the path to pull flat-bottomed commercial barges, called gabarres, up the river toward Bordeaux, at least until the railroad came to town and commercial shipping on the river was halted.

In 1984, Monnier had stumbled onto the path and convinced local authorities to let him carve a bas-relief into the stone. When he began, the towpath was so deserted he could camp there. By the time he returned to finish it 30 years later, it had become so popular with tourists—43,000 people walked along the path between June and November of 2018—that he decided to work at night to avoid the crowds.'

Next stop: Cahors.Read more