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

“Begin at the beginning,” the King said, very gravely,”and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”

Lewis Carroll – Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

What a difference a day makes. Whereas yesterday’s walk was sometimes an arduous trudge through apocalyptic weather conditions, today’s weather was largely benign and walking was a pleasure.

When I came down for breakfast, Martine was bimbling around in her pyjamas and dressing gown. It seemed as though she wasn’t in the best of humour. Whether this was connected to my presence ( a bath the previous evening which might have exhausted the hot water supply/my attempts to ‘lighten the mood’ by suggesting that Serge might want to apply to become the village mayor to solve all their problems (primary school about to close/petanque team which had folded or the village’s inability to access highspeed fibre internet) which might have gone down like a lead balloon or the fact that Serge had spent much of the previous evening using Google Earth to examine the location and size our current house in Gariès and our previous house in Winterbourne Stoke). Maybe she had just got out of bed the wrong side.

Serge eventually appeared and breakfast commenced. I opted for some ‘Cramaillote’ jam on my toast. This it transpired was dandelion jam ( aka pis-en-lit– so called for its diuretic qualities…)  Martine divulged that she had picked 550 dandelions last summer, which she had deplucked and made into 4 jars of jam. It tasted like honey and was rather good but I did feel rather guilty at denuding the best part of one of her four pots of joy to energise the last leg of the Chemin de Cluny.

Martine dipped her toast and jam in her coffee and looked at her watch. I sensed it was time to make tracks. The photos that were taken of me pointedly didn’t include Serge or Martine. I sensed I might have committed some awful social faux pas, bade them both goodbye and hastened on my way.

I picked up some goat cheese at the village epicerie to keep me going until Le Puy-en-Velay and headed off towards the hilltop village of Bellevue-la-Montagne.

Approaching La Bellevue-la-Montagne I met a lady walking her dog. We got chatting and I told her I was walking to Avignon. She was impresses and wished me a ‘Bon Camino’.

The medieval fortified village of Polignac, 4km outside Le Puy was impressive. Tickets for the castle were on sale but I couldn’t face the vertiginous ascent and contented myself with a few photos.

Le Puy-en-Velay is a seriously impressive place. The start of the Chemin de St Jacques pilgrim route to Compostella, and the place where the 1st Crusade was launched in 1095AD, the church of Saint-Michel dominates the horizon on the approach to Le Puy.

Nestled at the base of two basalt peaks, the town is aptly named, as puy means peak in French. It is believed that pagan shrines were built on the peaks in ancient times, but they were later Christianized. 

On the smaller peak, ‘l’Aiguilhe’ (the needle), a small hermitage was built in the year 969 AD. It still stands today and is perhaps the most beautiful early medieval churches in France.

The facade of Le Puy Cathedral in Le Puy-en-Velay, France

By the early medieval era in France, Le Puy was a bishopric and in the 10 ^th century became one of the starting points for the journey to the shrine of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain.

Because it was central and held in such high regard, Pope Urban II announced the start of the First Crusade in 1095, one of the most significant events in medieval Europe. Adhemar, bishop of Le Puy was a central figure in the First Crusade He died in Antalya Turkey 1098AD and never lived to see the liberation of the Holy City from the Muslims in July 1099AD.

I was last in Le Puy in August 1989, starting off on the Sentier de St Jacques as a callow 25 year old en route to South Korea after a year studying Korean at SOAS.

Much has changed over the last 35 years, but in a sense my own life has turned full circle. I can’t wait to attend the pilgrim mass in the cathedral at 7am tomorrow morning and head off once more on the Sentier de St Jacques towards Compostella.