France – Caminobleu

The time has come to wrap it up…

Tuesday, May 20, 2025

We are 2-3 days short of Eguzon and a train station where we thought we’d finish. But after two longish days and learning that a place about 15 km from here was not taking guests, we’ve decided to spend a rest day and in Neuvy Saint Sépulcre. This small town is the home of an unusual circular church holding a piece of stone from the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. It was brought here by a crusading local lord in the 11th century. The church was inspired by circular churches in the Middle East. It also has a drop of Precious Blood in a glass vial. The tiny stone and the glass vial are visible in the church.

Our chambre d’hôte is spacious — we were able to make our dinner here last night (no complex cooking unlike the Algerian workman who was making a dish with chicken, onions, potatoes, rice, a can of vegetables and a salad) for himself and two companions. He offered to share with us, too, but we finished our soup from a box, chèvre and canned oysters, a pastry from the boulangerie, and a bottle of rosé from the Loire district and climbed the stairs to bed before he was finished cooking.

We were able to wash our clothes in the washing machine, and hang them out to dry despite threatened rain.

With some reluctance and relief, we are going to stop walking here, facing up to the fact that we are not up to the physical challenges we handled five years ago.

Our hostess has offered to take us to Chateauroux tomorrow, the capital of the Berry region with connections by train and bus to the rest of the world.

I’ve spent the afternoon, when I’d rather have been napping, checking train and bus schedules and finally booking hotels for 2 nights each in. Chateauroux and Bourges. Connections to Paris are better from Chateauroux, but the Bourges Cathedral and old buildings along the water seem too enticing to pass up.

At this point I can hardly remember the names of the places we have stayed, and what we saw where!

It has been a mix of long stretches on small roads,some lovely tracks through fields and woods and some very wild, high grass or brushy slogs on unmaintained paths. There have been times we sat in the grass at the edge of the road because there was nowhere else, and times we were delighted to encounter a bench or picnic table.

Unlike on the LePuy Route, there have been no sources to replenish water, although a couple of times people have called out from their yards to ask if we would like water. After our first couple of days we learned to carry lots of water, which of course has made our packs heavier.

We’ve both noticed that our hearing-aid batteries have lasted much longer than usual. Kent says it’s so quiet because I lost my voice for several days, but I think it’s because it has been so quiet in the countryside, apart from the occasional passing tractor or car. We’ve heard lots of birds singing.

We have passed clusters of houses where we’ve seen no one. It has been an escape, for the most part from our noisy, busy world. When we walked past car dealers, gas stations, and busy roads on the outskirts of La Châtre, I realized that we as pilgrims are not part of that world any more.

When Booking.com lists nearby places as 10 and 15 miles away, we realize they are not a few minutes away by foot, but several hours of walking. We’re not part of the motor world, or have not been recently.

We rested today! What a treat to go back to bed after breakfast! We had a real lunch, and no supper. The day has flown by and I haven’t put on my boots!

I made a mistake in our hotel booking for tomorrow. I mixed up dates. I’ve called, texted, and emailed, and hope it will be OK. Stay tuned. Our adventures aren’t over yet, although I folded up my hiking poles, put them inside the pack, and drained the hydration pack.

Voie de Vézelay

May 2, 2025, Vézelay, France

The pilgrimage begins

We left Albuquerque on Monday morning, April 28, to find our flight to Dallas delayed by hours. We left that afternoon, spent the night in a hotel in a Dallas suburb and most of the next day at DFW before flying overnight to Paris, arriving on April 30.

I will attempt to copy my Facebook posts here. Writing on my iPhone Mini is difficult and today is the first we’ve had a little breathing space.

Going backwards

Our flight from ABQ to Dallas was delayed from about 1 pm to 8:30 pm. So here we are. Home for lunch in the patio, said goodbye to the roses again, and back to the airport for a 4:40 pm flight. Unless the plane to Paris is incredibly delayed, too, we will arrive a day late. The deadline just passed to cancel our Paris hotel without penalty. We may be spending 24 hours in DFW.😒

Morning, May 30. Paris

Hurrah! We’ve arrived at our hotel in Paris! Here’s the view from our window in the 13th. We had the usual queues and way finding difficulties and unbearable seats—can they possibly make them any smaller? It is quite warm here — upper 70s. Tomorrow we take the train to Vezelay.

Evening. May 30, Paris

After a very short rest (Kent totally conked out) we decided to walk 4 km each way to Notre Dame and back. It was 80 degrees F, but we stood in the long queue to get in. Seems like it is not true you can get a pilgrim credential there, but we spent quite a bit of time. Then we took &a different route back, stopping twice for drinks and a light supper. I can hardly stay awake to type this, so here are a very few photos. To Vézelay by train tomorrow before 1 pm if we slept on the 9-hour overnight flight, it was only for a few minutes. Lovely to be back in Paris!

May 1, Vézelay

We walked through Paris to Le Gare de Bercy,had a lovely train ride and then a very hot walk 9 plus km from Sermizelles to Vézelay. It took us from 3 until 7 pm., with one short stop for beer at the only place we came to in Asquins. We had a warm welcome at the St. Madeleine Centre, and we were exceedingly hot.

It is a busy long weekend starting today with May Day, so we will be here two nights. and we will walk only 12 km on Saturday. No room at that distance tomorrow. By the time we got into our dorm room — the restaurants were closing, and there were not many of them. Thanks to the English-speaking priest who carried both of our packs 3 floors up curved old stairs.

We did find a most interesting place run single-handedly by an innovative chef, but that’s too long to tell here now! Plus it is already 11 pm. and past lights out! We’re both in the women’s dorm as the men’s is pretty much full.

Thanks to daughter Psyche for managing to set up a Verizon wireless month-long travel plan for me as WiFi has been hard to come by and I couldn’t even connect with them through WiFi because I couldn’t receive text messages.

If anyone want’s to reach Kent in the next couple of days, contact me.

May 2 much Needed rest day in Vézelay

We are taking it easy, washing our clothes viewing the Basilica, having a leisurely lunch, getting money from a well-hidden ATM, impromptu concert, practicing my French, taking an afternoon nap. We’ll be ready to go early tomorrow morning! 11 k to Domecy sur Cure. Should be fairly short walk in cooler weather —maybe rain!

Arles to Toulouse: Le Chemin d’Arles

I’ve uploaded a higher defnition version the 21 minuite video of our pilgrimage from Arles to Toulouse in the Fall of 2019: https://youtu.be/c0_f8mQGebM

Day 23. Toulouse! October 14, 2019. We arrived in Toulouse about 2 pm. 39,210 steps (some after our arrival).

We were walking in the woods along the canal, then minutes later were on a shiny metro train jammed with people, and suddenly found ourselves in the middle of bustling Toulouse, where less than an hour before we’d been in a place with no shops, restaurants, or restrooms! Culture shock! We’d emerged into the 21st century!

With increasing wind and black clouds, we left the Canal du Midi perhaps 6 km short of the last lock (Bayard) near the Toulouse train station. We had walked much of that route last year, and were ready to be done.

Our Hotel Wilson Square is basic, but comfortable, and our room has windows on two sides. The staff at the Réception has been friendly and helpful.

After cleaning up and putting on clean clothes, we headed to the Basilica Saint Sernin to pay our respects and get a final stamp on our credentials from the Pilgrim Office. While there we encountered Jean from our gite in Saint Gervais, who had arrived yesterday.

We toured the crypt, which we must have done last year, with its series of altars, tombs, and relics which I found curious and without meaning to me, although I knelt at the one dedicated to St. Jacques Major, “our Jimmy” as our friend Margaret Brasuel calls him. I also was happy to see the statue of my pilgrimage companion St. Roch in one dark corner, with a single candle at his feet.

We sat together in silence (not everyone coming and going in that huge Romanesque basilica was silent) for a very long time. I had a lot to think about, not least about the history of the organized church, and what it had to do with my experience of the divine (quite little) and with what Jesus taught and meant — I somehow don’t think he had grand buildings and relics of saints or wealth and political power in mind. But it was an impressive space where worshippers had gathered and carried out traditions for over 1000 years, and I felt and honored the presence of those traditions.

We walked down the Rue du Taur, taking a quick look inside l’Eglise de Notre Dame, and sat in the expensive Le Florida cafe on the impressive square facing the Capitolium, where we decided on small coffees accompanied by “boules” of ice cream to celebrate our arrival.

We later walked to the Garonne to wait for the sunset, which was pretty much swallowed up by low clouds. We had dinner at Aloy Thai across the street from the hotel, and we couldn’t stay awake any longer.

A word about the last day’s walking. We followed a hilly path from Ayguesvives to Montigiscard, and then rejoined the Canal. We enjoyed seeing a few boats, and passed two or three locks, none of which had toilets or drinking water. A lockside cafe was closed up tight, whether for the season or because it was Monday there was no indication. We stopped there, sat at one of many tables and chairs, and ate the sandwiches we’d carried for a day and a half.

Just after that last (Castanet) lock we had to detour to the other side of the canal, where we took a rough path eventually past many boats that seemed to be permanent dwellings— not posh — more like the trailer camp we’d come upon much earlier on the walk. Later we saw abandoned boats, covered in autumn leaves.

There were many runners and cyclists, and few bushes to hide behind for a bush toilet.

At last, after skirting a yacht basin and high rise complex of dwellings, which had a couple of closed businesses, including a pizza place, we reached a small path to the Metro station. The Toulouse map we’d received at the tourist office in Port Lauragais enabled us to find this unsigned path.

Suddenly, our Camino came to an end. A kind man pulling a suitcase helped us buy our tickets from the machine, and showed us where to get off on the Metro map. Even as our Camino was ending, the kindness of strangers continued.

Our hotel was just steps from the Jean Jaurès Métro stop, as we made our rather dazed way to the hotel door, assaulted by the noise and numbers of people and vehicles, Burger King, and food shops and restaurants lining the streets, all open and busy. Such a shock after the quiet and deserted Canal.

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Today, we slept in until after 8am, found coffee and croissants at a very busy Starbucks, made a few other stops, and had lunch at the Imperiale upstairs from the Marche Victor Hugo (where i delighted in looking at all the displays of food).

The lunch (cassoulet for me) was more food than I could eat. We returned to the hotel for a nap, then paid a long visit to the tomb of St. Thomas Aquinas at the Dominican Couvent des Jacobins, a place dear to my heart that I’d first visited with Ed in 1999. We spent at least 45 minutes in that lovely, quiet, soaring space that is now enhanced by an art installation of colored lights that I did not find intrusive.