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

Making fun is serious business

Charlie Chaplin

Maybe it was the early (5am)  start to get the plane from Toulouse to Geneva, maybe it was the unrelenting 30C heat and humidity, maybe it was the simple fact that living high on the hog in south west France had taken its toll on my fitness levels. Who knows. But one thing is for certain, I was pretty knackered when I reached the little hamlet of Charly, shortly after 5pm. It was a sobering thought that I’d only covered 26km during the day. A snail could have done better!

It was thanks to Olivia’s generous offer to drive me to Toulouse airport at the crack of dawn to catch an 8am flight to Geneva. After a short train journey from the airport to Geneva station, I was on my way shortly before 10am, anticipating a gentle stroll to Charly.

There was time to drop into the basilica of Notre Dame, just across the road from the station.  It seemed a good idea to say a quick prayer requesting a safe pilgrimage over the next 18 days as I attempt to walk from Lake Geneva to the Med.

Looking fairly incongruous with my sunhat, backpack and trekking poles, I headed south to Carouge, the start of the 351km Via Gebennensis which finishes up in Le Puy-en-Velay.

Within an hour I’d reached the French border. If I’d blinked I would probably have missed. No fluttering tricolour. No armed sentries. Not even a sign saying that I was about to re-enter the EU. Just a rather innocuous wooden post with the word ‘frontière’ in parenthesis, which according to my guidebook, was the border between Switzerland and France. Underwhelming would have been an overstatement!

Neydens, my guidebook advised,  was somewhere I could resupply myself with food. Important, as the communal gite at Charly, where I was due to spend the night, didn’t offer a food option. With all shops being closed in France ( apart from large supermarkets), if Neydens didn’t deliver the bacon, then I would be looking at a very hungry 48 hours until I reached the Chateau de Pelly on Sunday evening.

Neydens had a nice church but, otherwise it fell short of my expectations. The village bakery was closed. There was a campsite but it only catered for campervans and the ‘Epicerie’ was closed for lunch. The restaurant beside the petrol station also showed no signs of life. I tightened my belt a notch and with clenched jaw, headed up the hill towards Verrières.

I’d barely gone 200 metres when I came across a sign, saying pilgrims welcomed, do drop by for free refreshments. You could have struck me down with a feather. There outside a chapel, by the side of the road, were four members of the Rhône-Alpes community if St James, who welcoming passing pilgrims and offering up all sorts of goodies – melon, cake, coffee and a stamp in my pilgrim passport.

There was an inviting looking chair and I took the opportunity to take an hour’s break and chat with the delightful pilgrim hosts.

As I devoured several slices of melon, the pilgrim hosts told me that the Via Gebennensis was becoming an increasingly popular pilgrim route with around 2,000 pilgrims doing the walk each year. Although that is a drop in the ocean compared to the 70,000 odd pilgrims who embark on the Chemin de St Jacques (GR65) from Le Puy every year, its still quite impressive.

However, it seems that very few Brits undertake the 351km  pilgrimage from Geneva to Le Puy. I was pretty much the only Brit they had encountered recently although Patrick Tiger, who hosted pilgrims near Lectoure in the Gers, had met a few on the Sentier de St Jacques.

About an hour later, I almost gate crashed a wedding at a place called Pomier. There must have been a good 300 or so guests milling around ahead of the forthcoming nuptials.

As I narrowly avoided being mowed down by a lady driving a black Porsche, I noticed a sign advertising the wedding between Carla and Ben. Maybe Carla had been the lady in the Porsche and was running late for the wedding do.

At around 5pm I eventually reached the communal gite at Charly. There was’t any sign of any other pilgrims so I made myself at home.

Thankfully somebody had left a tin of tuna and a packet of couscous in a cupboard. It may not have made a meal fit for a king but when you are ravenous, you will eat anything on offer.

Hopefully it will give me enough gas in the tank to get me to the Chateau de Pelly tomorrow.  But whether I’ll be able to walk 44km the following day to Yonne, is a bit more dubious! Charlie Chaplin, who lived just up the road on the banks of Lake Geneva at Vevey, would doubtless have thought it all rather comical.