We enjoyed a nice evening out last night in a bistro where everyone French was talking to everyone in the place. The couple beside us were particularly friendly and helped us to pick out our regional meals. It was Friday night and everyone was out for dinner it seemed. After dinner we went back to the east Utah store and I sorted out the walking route for today. I had planned to walk a variant that I sorted through at home this past winter, but late in July one of the main bridges was badly damaged making the route difficult to walk start to finish. This meant that I had to redo the route and find a place to come back down from the mountains and rejoin the variant.
We came down to the communal breakfast in the youth hostel this morning to discover that there were several walkers on the road to Rome. Imagine my surprise! There was a Dutch couple, Hans and Maya, from Leiden who are walking all the way to Rome. Hey seem really nice and hope to be in to Rome by October 20 about three days after I plan to make it there. With various resting days I’m sure our paths will cross numerous times on the road. We had met a young woman from Spain yesterday who is also on the same road as I am, named Angela. Plus there was another couple of people there that were walking south as well. I’ve read the online reports of a number of walkers this year who haven’t seen any Rome bound walkers until they’ve reached Italy. So it’s kind of nice to find these people and there will be some ongoing company hopefully as we progress. I guess time will tell.
It poured all night, and it was still raining when we woke up this morning. After breakfast we went up to our room and geared up, and just as it seemed the rain was settling it came down again with a vengeance. As a result, we left the hostel later than planned, but it’s better to go out when the rain has slacked off than when it’s just hammering down. We had our wet gear on, but as we walked and started to climb we quickly took off our rain jackets and just left our rain pants on. We were already soaked with sweat so it didn’t really matter if there was some light rain as the temperature wasn’t too cold.
We climbed for quite a while up into the cloud and eventually came to Fort Mahler, at the summit of the first climb.
We met Hans and Maya there who told us that the view from the fort was amazing and to hurry because more cloud was coming in. So I hurried. I wasn’t disappointed!
This is Chateau de Joux, and I had planned for us to climb to it on the original variant I’d hoped to walk today. However, there is a standard saying while on the Camino, you can do all the preplanning you want, but things usually never turn out the way you expect. You have to simply accept that this is the way things are. For example today I had envisioned walking in gorgeous sunshine being that it’s August, but of course nature had other plans!
After enjoying the spectacular view we started down the mountain. We were a little lucky to spot these two.
Once off the descent we headed for a small bakery that we had found online to supplement our breakfast and have a bit of refreshment. It was a pleasant surprise to find several of the folks from breakfast with the same intent.
The three of them had guides and decided to walk over the following two climbs today, but we decided to walk the variant. It might’ve been nicer to go up over the climbs as it turns out, but such is life. There was still lots of rain in the area and we decided that we would have better options if we stayed a little bit lower with the hope that we’d see more small towns and villages.
We said goodbye to everybody and headed off on our way down along the busy highway. We soon left the highway and headed along some back roads eventually coming on to an old railway bed. The walking was lovely and the surroundings were quite beautiful.
However, we came to an area where the powers that be are clearly building a new railway through here. There’s a whole camp set up with flatbed rail cars loaded with railway ties and new gravel.
Going forward, the variant that I’d quickly scramble together last night sort of began to unravel a little. For several reasons I couldn’t find a way to make the same route work again in a specific area so we ended up following the new rail line, which wasn’t on the mapping app I was using. We followed it much further than we expected and some of the heavy gravel walking wasn’t too enjoyable.
I keep saying that these outhouses are the solution to the mess along the Camino de Santiago, but no one seems to be listening!
All along we were also getting bits of rain falling on us as we continued a steady climb up over the thousand metre level where we are tonight.
If you’ve been keeping track, we have been climbing steadily into the Jural Mountains since we arrived in France. It’s really quite beautiful up here, and becoming more and more like Switzerland with each passing hour. In fact, we will cross the Swiss border tomorrow about halfway through the stage. We’re both pretty excited about that because Switzerland is the home of Toblerones! Just kidding, well not really. Some who know me very well are aware of my relationship with dark chocolate Toblerone. I get one at Christmas and it basically lasts the entire year (hint, it’s not the small one). There are many other things about Switzerland that we love, and I hope to share some of those things in the coming 10 or so days.
With another large rain cell passing close by our area we huddled up in a small stairwell and split the sandwich I’d bought at the bakery earlier in the morning.
The rain never really touched us there, but we had a chance to have a little bit of a break before making the decision to leave the rail line and head through a small village and along a highway until we rejoin the VF in Les Hospitaux-Vieux.
We hid under a large highway bridge to avoid another intense rain cell then hurried into the next town for a beverage break in what was becoming a long day.
Eventually both quite dry we ended up in Jougne where we have a nice little hotel right beside the town church.
This of course means that the bells will be ringing just outside our window all night long. Sigh. Also, the only bed available was a small double in which we will be doing our best to get a few hours of sleep before walking again tomorrow. We usually try to get twin beds so that we can get as much sleep as possible, however from time to time plans have to be adjusted.
We were looking forward to a nice dinner in the restaurant. It was very good!
I enjoyed the trout and a bounty of veggies!
All our gear is dry and our laundry is hung in various spots all over the room in an effort to be dry for tomorrow’s walk. Some of my new trekking shirts don’t require washing every day, and that’s how they’re advertised. So far not too many complaints from my partner, so it must be working! This means a bit less laundry on this walk, which I’m really enjoying.
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