We walked 15 km and climbed 107 floors today. We are settled in this tiny town that had no power most of the after (hence no service).
The power is back but the network is not worth anything as I can’t upload any pictures at all. We are doing great and enjoying a peaceful day. The best way to beat the heat is to be done early so we will start again early in the morning. We will try and post pictures when we have a better connection.
After a long and arduous descent into Saint Privat d’Allier yesterday, we needed a little pampering, and that is exactly what we got at our gite l’Etape Gourmand, run by Sonja from Holland. She runs a small but very attractive and beautiful place. She agreed to cook us dinner, which was fabulous We were the only guests last night, so we had a nice time chatting with her. She has a wonderful heart and enjoys people (she also speaks English very well).
Saint Privat d’Allier is gorgeous with stunning views from all sides.
The town is indeed, gorgeous, but there are only two stores (a butcher shop and a bakery). With a long hike of 19 km ahead of us, we stoked up on a baguette, goat cheese, tomatoes, croissants and fruits (our picnic breakfast and lunch).
We left our gite at 6:10 a.m. this morning before the sunrise!
The day started with alternating ascents and descents, but after an hour, it was downhill the rest of the morning.
What a surprise when we reached a town around 9:30 a.m. to find coffee (for Pat) and Gelato (for me).
At 10:00 a.m. we began a continuous, long climb of over 10 km with beautiful panoramic views.
Halfway up the mountain we came to the chapel Madeline which originally was a 36,000-year-old cave, in front of which a facade added in 17th century.
The climb continued while the views and shade allowed us to enjoy the early afternoon.
We stopped along the way for our picnic lunch in the shade beside the trail. The baguette with cheese, tomatoes and chicken tasted great, and the ability to sit for awhile after the few hours of climbing was fantastic (especially with the pack off our backs).
It was a 90+ degree day, and the afternoon sun was merciless towards the top where there was only intermittent shade. After 10 hours, we finally climbed down to our destination of Saugues.
We are staying in a large gite tonight and just finished our communal dinner with other pilgrims and hordes of kids vacationing in this town and gite!
BTW, it was supposed to be 19km hike, but based on my Fitbit, it recorded 217 floors of climbing and 26km of hiking. We are beat.
P.S it is nice to have wifi and a strong cellular service for the first time this week so that I could upload more pictures!
We stayed in a gite last night, our first experience of this concept.
The family built their own new house right next door to their former family home and farm of several generations, and converted the former family house into a 17 bed gite. There were 8 others staying for the night. We had a group meal outdoors at the gite (there was no restaurant or grocery store in town).
We left at 7:10 am in the morning as we had 15 km to cover. An hour into the walk, we spotted a shepherd with his dog driving the sheep.
An hour after that, it was the cows’ turn!
About 8 km into the walk, we came across this chapel that was originally built in the tenth century.
We were steadily climbing, but after the town of Montbonnet, the climb became steeper.
We stopped for our meager lunch of boiled eggs, tomatoes, and bread (which is the only meal we could purchase without pork from our gite owner).
What goes up must come down. We had a steep drop to our final destination of the day. On the way down we ran into “Mignonne,” the donkey. Guillaume with his family had rented the donkey for 5 days. Amyn and Sakkar were interested in the idea of employing a donkey, so I got all the scoop!
Cost for five days €250 + transport cost of €250 (to transport the donkey back home) if you rent one way. No food cost for the donkey, as he (in this particular case, she) will eat along the way. Make sure to let the donkey have water every 3 days (they are like camel). It can carry up to 50 KG on its back (so a few people can share one).
This is the family who used the donkey. Apparently Mognonne is very stubborn and and decided she wasn’t going any further down the steep trail. The father, Guillaume, was about to lead her out across a horizontal road, and down. The 3-year old boy sometimes rode the donkey. The 5-year old walked, as did the others, including the baby on mom’s or dad’s back.
We are settled now for the day after 16 km of walking, and of climbing about 68 floors. We find the climb up to be always easier than coming downhill!
We wanted today to be a day to acclimate ourselves to the GR 65 route and get used to carrying our backpacks. We left our comfortable Airbnb studio at 7:30 am.
We picked up the route at the Cathedral and proceeded out of town.
I just loaded my first picture, and it took forever!!! We are at our rest stop for the day. There is no wifi here and not much of a cellular reception. I will try and load few more pictures to give you a sense of the countryside.
The closest town is 1/2 km back, and it has no wifi either! The town’s population is 927 people. There are neither stores nor restaurants there, just a picnic area for all the hikers to mingle and eat their lunches. Our lodgings provide a dinner meal, and the proprietor has said she will make us a picnic lunch for tomorrow.
We walked about 12 km today and climbed 104 floors. A good hike to get in shape for longer days ahead.
Here are some highlights from today’s walk.
Looking back toward Le Puy.
Turns out, if you don’t want to carry your backpack, you may be in luck!
Thank you for all your comments and best wishes. The best reward for Pat and Me is to go over those comments.
For the first time in our lives, Pat and I are empty nesters. Sitara has moved to Washington, DC, and Chand is in Boston. We all left Denver around the same time heading for new adventures. For us, that adventure brings us to Le Puy-en-Velay to begin our Camino walk. The Le Puy route, or Chemin du Puy in French, is the most popular pilgrimage route in France. The route is 736 km (450 miles long, starting in Le Puy-en-Velay passing through Conques, Figeac, Cahors, Moissac, Aire-sir-l’Adour and Navarrenx before it reaches the border town of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (where we began our first Camino two years ago).
We were introduced to this path during our walk last year by Richard and Margie as we traveled alongside them during our Camino del Norte journey. Le Puy route was one of their favorite and scenic Camino walks.
We are settled here in Le Puy at the base of the rock of St. Michel. The chapel was built on this rock in 961 after the bishop returned from his pilgrimage to Santiago.
Tomorrow morning we will begin our journey starting from the cathedral of Notre Dame.
We will head out of town down the hill to begin our first of many climbs as we treverse the famous GR 65 route theough the villages of France.
Happy Holidays. It was an exciting year. I wanted to take a moment to thank all my wonderful readers who made it fun for me to capture some of these beautiful moments. Best wishes to all of you for an exciting and adventurous new year
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2015 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 3,500 times in 2015. If it were a cable car, it would take about 58 trips to carry that many people.
Today marks the end of our Camino walk. We made it to Santiago. We feel so grateful and blessed to have the health and the energy to undertake such a journey, and the good fortune and blessings to complete it.
We appreciate also all the support of our family and friends. Words can’t express how blessed we feel.
We started at 8 today and enjoyed a dream-like walk in the morning. Clouds, fog and sun were all cooperating with each other to create a mosaic of beautiful vision.
I will let the pictures do the talking.
We loved our journey. This quote we found expresses our feelings,
“Once you achieve a significant goal, you will not be the same person you were when you set out on the journey. The process of achieving your goal and the experience you have gained will have changed you. This is why the journey is the reward.”
Today was a day of nostalgia. Just about a year ago we walked this same stage.
It is nice to leave the extreme weather we experienced over the last few days. During the journey we had to deal with sharp ascents and descents, muddy conditions, and long stages. The final chapter was the unseasonable weather. Through it all we saw some great scenery and coastal views of beautiful Spain.
We had a 20 km walk today to Pedrouza. There was no rain in the forecast for the morning, so we decided to leave just before sunrise.
It was a brisk morning but we were prepared for it. It was amazing how some landmarks were vivid while others had faded away. The countryside was beautiful and the path very serene and peaceful.
Pat was so happy to be back on the Camino Frances with so many other pilgrims, places to stop and drink coffee or visit with other pilgrims. That is one thing we had missed on the Camino del Norte. We saw more pilgrims this morning than our entire six week journey on Camino del Norte.
The trail was nice and the scenery beautiful.
We stopped and visited the spots for breakfast and lunch that we had stopped at last year!
We are now settled in the same albergue we were in last year.
Tomorrow will be our last stage of 19 km to Santiago.
Email notification did not go out for today’s blog also. You will need to visit the site again. Sorry, can’t figure out why the WordPress sometimes goofs up.
Camino Mystic 