Pilgrim's Progress – Long Distance Walks in Europe and the UK

You can’t be a successful Dictator and design women’s underclothing.’
‘No, sir.’
‘One or the other. Not both.‘

PG Wodehouse – The Code of the Woosters

I must confess I wasn’t looking forward to the day’s walk from Villeneuve to Toulouse one little bit. After the tarmac crunching through the centre of Montpellier, I awoke with a distinct sense of deja vu. But when I passed the sign to St Eulalie, shortly after setting off, my spirits lifted. This was surely a sign that things were on the up.

Afficianados of PG Wodehouse, Jeeves and Wooster, will need no reminding of the significance of ‘Eulalie’ with regards to Roderick Spode who appears for the first time in Wodehouse’s ‘Code of the Woosters’ published in 1938. Loosely modelled on Sir Oswald Mosley and his fascist Blackshirts, ‘Eulalie’ proves to be Spode’s nemesis! Read the Code of the Woosters and enjoy Wodehouse’s perennial charm.

Just outside Baziège I encountered the unexpected – an enclosure of young wallabies. There must have been 7-8 of them, mostly looking a bit morose if truth be known. Llamas and alpacas are two a penny on the lawns of manors and Old Rectories across England, but pint sized wallabies in SW France? This wasn’t a petting zoo, this was somebody’s back yard. What were they doing there apart from pining for their homeland in Australia?

When I arrived at Montgiscard I was presented with the option of following the Canal du Midi into the centre of Toulouse. This would shave 6km from the official route and make for a flat and relatively straightforward walk into the centre of Toulouse. The downside risk was that it looked like being an extremely desultory day’s walk punctuated by regular encounters with bikers haring down the canal path at break neck speed. I opted to forschew the canal route in favour of the more challenging inland route.

As it turned out there were a lot of ups and downs on the route to the centre of Toulouse. By 2pm I was beginning to feel pretty foot weary. There wasb’t a cloud in the sky and the previous day’s breeze had entirely disappeared.

I met several walkers out for the day. Most seem rather gobsmacked when I divulged that I averaged 35-40km a day. ‘Doesn’t get a bit boring?’ one of them quipped. ‘No’ I replied, ‘ life gives you a lot to ponder’.

I’d been worried that most of today would be spent pounding the tarmac into the centre of Toulouse in search of accommodation for the night. It’s true that I was ample evidence of rough sleepers in the streets of Toulouse and tents on the banks of the Garonne which flows through the city.

The surprising thing about the day’s walk was that it wasn’t intil 4.30pm that I left the countryside and entered the concrete jungle of Toulouse. 45 minuted later I was safely ensconced in my hotel just off the Place de Capitole that was awash with people enjoying a leisurely Sunday evening.

Safely ensconced in my city centre hotel, there was only one thing that remained to be done. Find a supermarket open on a Sunday evening, purchase some razor blades and remove the accumulated stubble of the last fortnight before I ended up looking like a poor apology for Catweazle!