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

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Old Time is still a-flying;
And this same flower that smiles today
Tomorrow will be dying.

Robert Herrick – To the Virgins, to Make Much of Time.

Michelle and Françoise were the perfect hosts. They’d lived in the area all their lives and loved having pilgrims to stay with them.

That was great news for myself and Étienne, a retired doctor from Brussels who was also staying the night and sharing the same bedroom as me.

Françoise cooked up a storm for supper – stuffed peppers and stuffed tonatoes. One of the many pleasures of staying with pilgrim hosts is that you get to enjoy their home cooking every evening!

It turned out that Étienne (who was a retired military doctor) and Françoise and Michel shared a love of trekking in Nepal. They had all been involved with charitable initiatives in the country helping build schools there.

Françoise suffered from a trembling voice syndrome which had been aggravated by taking the Covid vaccine. But she made light of her ailment and confessed that she felt more at ease when chatting to fellow pilgrims such as myself and Étienne, who could empathise with her condition.

Étienne set off 30 minutes before I did – he wasn’t walking as far as I was but expected that I would soon overtake him. In fact I didn’t catch him up until mid morning. When I did so, I broke stride and got chatting.

He told me that he’d been recently diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer, for which there was known cure. He was curiously phlegmatic about it all. He told me that the cancer was currently in remission but being diagnosed with it, had brought home to him the importance of living for the moment and squeezing every ounce of enjoyment out of life. “You never know what is around the corner in this life” he told me as he waved me on my way.

Just after I parted company with Étienne, the Via Gebennensis diverged from the GR65. Luckily I followed the blue signs marking the Via Gebennensis rather than the red and white signs of the GR65. Had I followed the GR65, I would gave reached Chavanay, but I would have added another 8km to my day’s walk which would have been a killer!

Much of the afternoon was spent walking through vineyards on my way to Saint Julien Molin Morette. The area around Chavanay produces some of the best wines in the upper Loire valley including Condrieu AOC.

I arrived at Saint Julien-Molin-Morette shortly after 5.30pm and tracked down my accommodation in the centre of town. The proprietor (Yannick le Nord) wasn’t there but another pilgrim, called Odile, was. She welcomed me, showed me around the accommodation and explained that Yannick wasn’t a man, as I had assumed, but an 85 year old woman and a very dynamic one at that.

After a quick shower we headed off to a Turkish restaurant around the corner for a slap up meal. The weather forecast for the following week looked pretty grim and I was in need of a beer and some comfort food. There is only so much sliced carrot and mackerel a man can eat before he starts to lose the plot and go off the rails!

We were just polushing off our kebabs when Yannick arrived and ordered a baklava for pudding.

Yannick was an artist as was her father. All the other members of her family were involved in the art world  There was something gloriously Bohemian about Yannick, who despite being in her 80s, painted every day and also worked as a journalist for a local newspaper.

Yannick’s apartment was every inch an artust’ studio. Besides various paintings by Yannick there were bookcases laden with reference works on Chagall, Gauguin, Modigliani and a host of French impressionists.

Before heading off upstairs to file a news story for the local paper (Yannick confessed to still working through the night!) she told us about her father, Jacques le Tord, who had supported the family on the earnings from his paintings which were mostly pastels. These had proved extremely popular and sold for large sums which had allowed the family to live in some style. The denouement had come when her father had decided to enter a new phase of painting which involved ditching pastels and realism in favour of abstract art. This had proved a disaster – the paintings hadn’t sold and I suspect that this had something to do with why Yannick was now living in confined circumstances in Saint- Julien-Molin-Morette!

As Étienne had informed me earlier in the day. On a pilgrimage, as with life, you never really know what is around the next corner. The secret to happiness is not to worry too much and just live for the day.