Being home again as spring passes with the warmth of summer
already upon us is making my feet itchy to walk, and walk. I know, just back a
short time from our last adventure and desiring to be off again on another
journey. Well, I have a pretty good excuse for this behavior, actually several.
Firstly, this is the lifestyle distantly planned for during our many university
and working years. Secondly, I feel compelled to celebrate (perhaps the wrong
choice of words) a bit of a personal milestone…I turn 60 in July. Mon Dieu!! My
inner voice is telling me that I’ll need a very long walk indeed to get over
this rather intrusive life event! Thirdly, sort of like the song, “its my party
and I’ll walk if I want to…”
So the decision has been made. Subject to a minor, but
critically located foot injury healing well, I depart August 13th (that’s
just 10 weeks from now) and arrive in Lyon, France on the 14th. After
a day of wandering this, the second largest city in France and passing
through the jet lag barrier, I’ll take the train to Le Puy-en-Velay where I’ll
spend a day or so seeing this very picturesque volcanically situated town.
I’ve selected the Le Puy Route, aka the GR65, aka the Via Podiensis because it
passes through one of the principal volcanic areas of France (allegedly all
extinct) situated in the Massif Central. Of course this means that there will
be climbing…there’s always climbing…sigh. I plan to walk out on August 18th
mid week to miss the weekend warriors and touring groups, hoping that I will
have better luck finding a bed each night in a gîte, similar to an albergue in
Spain. I’ve also chosen this route for the history. This
route crosses one of the longest settled regions in France from early man to
the Romans to the 100 Years War to the present. I’ll eventually post more about
the route.
Clearly I have to go because my Miam Miam Dodo (official
route book) arrived from the UK just 10 minutes ago! Its all in French, so another
project…learn some French. I think the walking will be the easier of the two? Annemarie
is presently looking at the profile maps and laughing at all the steep climbs she
will miss in the first two weeks. She’s not making me feel very spiritual about
our walk together with such un-Camino like comments, “I’ve never seen climbs this steep
before!”
It will take me 14 stages to cross the mountains and I hope
to be able to accomplish this without a day off as I have to meet Annemarie in
Cahors around September 1st where we will celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary (if I walk really fast I might just make it on the actual day). Over the following 3 weeks we will walk together SE across the Garonne River Valley and over the Pyrenees to Pamplona (picking up
the Camino Frances in St. John Pied de Port).
A combined distance of about 800kms. Yes, Annemarie is prepared to give this
Camino thing another go and she is training very well. In late September she will
return home from Pamplona to continue a project that is very close to her heart.
As it turns out this commitment will take her away from home off and on until
the end of the first week of November…you can see where this is going;-)
