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

It happens sometimes that we meet people – even perfect strangers – who interest us at first glance, quite suddenly and unexpectedly, before a word has been spoken.

Fyodr Dostoyevsky – Crime and Punishment

Today would have been a fairly unremarkable days walk were it not for the remarkable people encountered during the day: my host Gilbert d’Epenoux, Reynaud whom I spent 6 hours chatting with and hosts at Noailly, Jacqueline and Marcel Besson.

Over breakfast I chatted with Gilbert about his experiences on the camino, his career in the military and his views on the conflict in Ukraine. Before I headed on my way towards Charlieu I asked him to drop by if he was ever visiting our neck of the woods.

Shortly after reaching the little village of Le Cergne I chancrd across another pilgrim heading in the same direction as I was. We walked at the same pace and we ended up spending most of the day together!

Renaud worked in Lyon as an administrator in local government helping small local businesses get established in the Haute Loire and Rhone and Saone districts, a fairly huge area of France. He’d grown up in Iran before the Shah was overthrown and had spent time in Venezuela. Even stranger, he’d met Nicholas, the owner of the gite where I’d stayed at St Jacques-des-Ârret.

Renaud had completed a number of long distance walks in France and Spain and was a wealth of information about this part of France. He’d been walking the Chemin de Cluny for the past week and was due to head back to Lyon in the afternoon.

Charlieu was fairly deserted but had some charming medieval streets.

We headed off to a café to share a beer together before Renaud headed off to catch a lift back to Lyon. We swapped contact details and agreed to keep in contact.

Charlieu is perhaps most famous for its Benedictine abbey founded in 872AD. Although much was destroyed during the French Revolution, the tympanum above the main entrance is considered one of the most important pieces of 9th century church architecture.

After saying goodbye to Renaud, I headed off towards Noailly on an old railway track that had been converted to a bicycle pathway.

Just before Briennon I crossed the Loire. It was ironic to think that the last time I walked along the Loire was on an ill-fated trip to visit the chateaux of the Loire valley with two school friends in 1981. The weather in August was so hot that we never got to see any of the famous chateaux and we ended up spending most of the holiday flaked out at a campsite with a swimming pool. Chambord and Chenonceau are still on my ‘to do’ list!

I finally reached my hosts’ house at Noailly shortly before 6pm and gratefully accepted the cold beer that was thrust into my hands by Jacqueline.

Over supper I chatted with Michel and Jacqueline about their experience hosting pilgrims and their travels in France. I was the 15th pilgrim they’d hosted so far in 2024 but the first English pilgrim – a similar story to the one told me by every other pilgrim host family I had met during the week. Americans, Brazilians, Italians, Germans and French pilgrims were two a penny but prior to my appearance, English pilgrims on the Chemin de Cluny were rarer than hen’s teeth!