Author: Linnea Hendrickson

This was a hard day with lots of walking on paved surfaces, some on busy highways.  

But, with Alain’s help we reserved a room in a chambre d’hôte for tonight.

I imagined a charming bed and breakfast with a hovering hostess, wallpaper, and our every need catered to.

 Instead it was a room above a busy bar-restaurant. The listing said English spoken, but that was not the case.  The harried owner was finishing serving the midday meal and directed us to the back of the dining room to some red-painted steep and narrow stairs, up which we trudged with our backpacks.

We found our attic room #2 with electrical cords running everywhere, a single bed and double bed with a small plexiglass shower and a sink in one corner.  Toilet in the hall. We got connected to WiFi, figured out how to turn on an electric heater and we’re now actually quite comfortable.

Alain arrived after we had taken a short walk around the town. I also managed to reserve a room at the Hotel du Commerce in Guerigny—an 18km walk from here tomorrow. 

Highlights of the walk. Seeing a great white egret fly from a pond, finding a bench to sit on by a bibliothèque du lavoir, decorated on the outside with strings of multi-colored scallop shells, and with books filling the inside arrayed around the pool of water.  Then the church in the lovely village of Moussy.

We also met three high-powered German walkers who walk a week of the Camino each year.  

During long long straight stretches of highway I prayed long, angry prayers, thinking I was suffering walking this road out of choice, while many are walking even harder roads, and not with fine backpacks, boots, and money and credit cards in their pockets. We must be such a disappointment to a loving God for not taking better care of the poorest of those among us and pursuing money and power rather than loving each other.  There was much more, of course.

So, a long walk tomorrow.

We’re in a large municipal gîte adjacent to the town hall, with two Netherlanders who walked in one day what we did in two, a bicyclist, and Alain.  There is no heat and it is cold!

There’s a kitchen, one bathroom that fortunately has a nice hot shower that took me forever to figure out how to turn on, a stove and fridge and a little grocery with very limited hours and stock right next door. Fortunately we were able to buy a couple of beers, some juice, yogurt, cheese and bread. Oh, and 2 eggs.  There is nothing else in the town, or anywhere for miles around. We ate what was left of the generous sandwiches last night’s campground made for us.

More beautiful scenery today. Lots of not too steep or long ups and downs, and a bit too much pavement walking, although on empty country lanes. Not a singe shop, bar or place to get water. Fortunately we had what we needed. 

So far, this has been the most unpredictable Camino ever!  I’ve tried booking a chambre d’hôte for tomorrow night in Premery, the biggest town so far, but it doesn’t seem to have a lot of options either.

We had nice conversations with the Dutch walkers, and Alain was able to translate the stories told by the woman who came to take our Euros and stamp our credentials.

We’re certainly living a simplified life in very quiet, uncrowded places these days. I’m sure traveling through this area by car would be quite a different experience. The cold weather is great to walk in.

We saw a small red fox in the low marshy spot just before we climbed up here last night, heard many birds and spied our first magpies of the walk.  We’ve encountered lots of white cows who eye us with great curiosity, a runaway lamb, and two horses today.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Today started out well with bright blue skies, fluffy clouds, and ups and downs through picturesque tiny clusters of houses.  It was perfect weather for walking.  

We took a break on the steps of a roadside cross. Alain came along as we were sitting there and took our picture.

We were dragging a bit by the time walked into Corbigny, the biggest town we’d been in since Paris. We anticipated restaurants and shops but although there was some activity we were disappointed. Lots of shops were closed, some because it was Monday, but some seemed permanently closed.  We found a little restaurant, Cafe Didine, open, with a choice of chicken or tuna. We both chose chicken, but then were informed there was only one serving left, so I let Kent have the chicken and I ate tuna in a yellow sauce.

By the time we finished lunch the sky had grown gray and the wind picked up. We found 2 ATM machine and got more Euros, so we were relieved about that. 

I felt quite refreshed after lunch, but Kent was lagging.  We walked the old road to Chitry le Mines, birthplace of writer Jules Renard, whose work I don’t know. There was a plaque about his birthplace and a series of sites relating to him. 

I enjoyed walking the abandoned old road, rocky and  high above the new one where I could see cars whizzing by.  I imagined what it would be like to bounce over those rocks in an old car.  I decided I like neglected old places going back to the wild.

At the edge of town we crossed the Nivernais Canal, with many houseboats, but I guess we will not be walking along it.  

Toilets and showers are a bit of a walk away and pretty much open air. Our little cabin has just two single beds, a shelf, a window in the door and a towel rack heater—so not quite the cozy bungalow I’d envisioned.  I suspect if it was about 20 degrees warmer, I’d feel differently and enjoy sitting.outside.

Temp is 54 F, but with wind it is said to feel like 46.  We did have an OK dinner with Alain in the little bar here. Tomorrow we’ll be in a municipal gîte in Saint Révérien, a 16k walk with no shops or bars along the way and a small grocery near the gîte.  I hope it’s a pretty walk.

Day 2 from Vézelay 

L’Esprit du Chemin

Getting Lost in a Sudden Downpour, but All’s Well with a Fine Ending

We had a lovely visit with our host Chantal this morning, and set off in high spirits, this time carrying plenty of water. The first part of our walk was gradually uphill through old forests filled with masses of spring flowers. 

We rounded the Chateau at Bazoches, and probably should have continued on the old Roman road. Instead we descended steeply into Bazoches, missed a turn and retraced our steps descending more and then ascending through more woods to a deserted Chapelle de St. Roche.

Then down to La Neuffontaines where we shared one of our sandwiches at a picnic table bedside the road across from an old lavoir. Feeling quite proud that we were making good progress, we should have been cautious.  After all, pride comes before fall. We left the village with its abandoned church and climbed up out of the village. A woman working in her garden wished us “Bon Chemin” so I  was confident we were on the right track. But Kent said, ”We shouldn’t be following a paved road out of town.”

We came to an intersection with a cross and dirt tracks crossing the road marked by a Compostelle marker that pointed at an ambiguous angle. 

I decided we should turn right onto the dirt track, which we did, seeing nary a marker along the way. We came out on another road, just as the map showed, but no markers in sight,

“Look at that big cloud!”  We headed to an intersection with lots of signs, none of them for the Camino, and none with any names we recognized.

What to do now? We studied our maps and I tried to pull up other maps on my phone.  We hadn’t figured anything out when the sky opened. We grabbed our ponchos and struggled to pull them on in the wind and rain. A scrawny tree offered no protection.

What to do? I waved down a passing car. It looked like a middle-aged woman and her mother.

“Nous sommes perdue.” I said in my impeccable French. 

 “Where are you going?”

  “Le Chemin de Compostelle.”

They shook their heads.  No idea about that.  I tried to think of names of places ahead of us. They were all tiny hamlets no one would have heard of.  

Finally I remembered Corbigny! Meanwhile we were getting wetter and wetter, my hands were so cold and wet I could not bring up anything on my phone, and rain was pouring through their car window. Corbigny was behind them, they told us.  They tried hard to be helpful, but we didn’t even know what to ask. Bless them!We let them go, and Kent suggested we walk back to Neuffontaines to try to find where we went wrong. As we walked back on the road that we hoped would take us there without cutting back through the field, which would now be muddy; the rain stopped.

We returned to our sodden map pages. I gave up on the phone. Without the rain pounding us, we could study the map.

Kent guessed we should return to the road where we’d met the car and continue in the direction the car had been going.  There was a church on top of a hill we’d seen from miles away.

“We need to be on the other side of that hill,” Kent said.  I could see he was right. We’d turned off the road out of the village too soon.  We realized that the faint gray lines on the map meant paved but unmarked roads.  We’d been on the right road in the first place.  Sure enough another km or so along the D142 highway, we came to the track we should have taken from the first road out of the village, and there were Compostelle signs!

I was relieved. And humbled. We walked around the high promontory, and the sun almost broke through. When we passed a weathered cross surrounded by blue and yellow irises, I started to cry, grateful for Kent and grateful we were on the right path. The scenery was spectacular. we passed through and near almost empty villages, and found Compostelle markers at every turn, through steep downs and ups, curious cows welcoming us at the top of a long climb and one snorting bull who charged to to a fortunately strong fence as I passed by, my blue poncho blowing in the wind.

Now we are spending the night in the loveliest gite imaginable and we even have our own room with a large double bed, sheets and a warm comforter. And who else is here: Alain, and another dozen people. Dutch, French, German, many English-speaking. We had a delicious communal dinner at a long table, all much better than we deserve.  There is even WiFi.  Plus I was given additions to the Organic Maps app that shows where we are and where the camino roads and lodgings are.  So we should get hopelessly lost again! Merci!

26,903 steps or between 9 and 11 miles 

So Bon Nuit!

May 3, Saturday

It’s been an interesting day.  We left Vézelay at 7:30 am, walked down the hill and took a side path to St. Père. The path descended through open fields, with views back toward Vézelay the revealed the whole village and its escarpment. One thing did not go right this morning was that the sole ATM machine for miles around, was not working.  

Our Capital One account limits us to $300 per day, which does not last long if we are staying in places where we need to pay cash, which will be the case for the next four nights!

I spied a spire that appeared to be growing out of a field. Was it some kind of triangular piece of farm equipment?

No, it was the spire of the historic church of St. Pere (named on the basis of local pronunciation of St. Pierre. 

 We walked to the church, found it would not be open until 9, another, 45 minutes. I could tell from my online map (Organic Maps) that there might be a bar and hotel on the main road a short walk away. Then an elderly woman in a red car pulled up,rolled down her window, and motioned did we want to eat?  We said “oui,” and she pointed in the direction we were walking. Sure enough we found a bar and hotel, but no signs of the Vival (small grocery/convienne type store) that should have been there, too. The bar had orange juice in a bottle, not the hand-squeezed kind you get in Spain, but we were happy to have it. There were a lot of women with big backpacks there, too, but we would never see any of them again.

After back-tracking to see the church, then returning to the main road again  and crossing the River Cure, we veered off onto a small track that led us along the river, then up and down across open fields. We’d had a few drops of rain earlier, but now the sun came out and it was hot.  It seemed like a long way before we spied some buildings, and at last came to a road.  And there at an intersection sat Alain, whom we’d first met at the Bercy train station in Paris, and again yesterday at mid-day in Vézelay. He had not continued to Bazoches that day, but stopped, perhaps at St. Pere. 

Less than an hour later we encountered him again at another intersection.  A fancy restaurant was nearby, but not yet open. We had not filled our hydration packs and our water bottles were getting low.  Then we encountered two very fit-looking women we’d shared our dorm with and sat across from at breakfast, they were walking toward us, looking for the path. Alain had disappeared down an unlikely looking track that went steeply down. Kent and I decided that was the way, but the two women continued back the way we’d come, not convinced. We never saw them again.

The track began to climb, sometimes steeply and muddily,  through deep woods. Kent spied Alain ahead, and at one point a runner zipped past, making me jump in surprise.  Finally we came out of the woods onto a gravel road lined with brilliant flowers. And there was Alain, who looks about our age, taking a break.  I snapped his picture among the yellow flowers in his yellow t-shirt.

Then we came to a magnificent chateau, that also was a gite and campground. But we had reservations with Mme. Chantal Perriot. We had her address but were uncertain which branch of an intersection to take. We asked a man standing in his doorway who informed us Mme. Perriot was expecting two Americans. He also invited us in to refill our water. 

We didn’t know quite what to expect at this lodging, but we have a little cottage to ourselves with kitchen and bath surrounded by roses and wisteria and with sheep next door. Chantal Perriot has been delightful, bring us delicious fresh bread and cheese, leaving us withheld microwave dinners fresh strawberries, apples and pears and cheese, and a fridge stocked with beer and coke because we told her we have no food.

We’re quite comfortable here, and with her help have a place for tomorrow night.  She’ll give us breakfast and sandwiches for lunch because there will be nothing for 12 km and our next lodging at L’Esprit du Chemin.

The distance was supposed have been 11 km today but my phone apps say we have walked between 8 and 10 miles. We were tired enough by 1 pm to not want to go any farther.

Tomorrow we may have rain and cooler temperatures, but we’ve added a liter of water to our hydration packs to be sure we don’t run out again.

Until tomorrow.