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

The best laid schemes o’ mice and men gang aft agley

Robert Burns – To a Mouse

The plan for the day was simple. Get going by 6am to reach Montségur by 4pm. From there I would catch the last bus of the day (4pm) to reach Foix where I had booked into a youth hostel for the night. The Topoguide to the Cathar Way estimated that it would take 10 hours to cover the 35km to Montségur. What could possibly go wrong?

As I headed out of my gite I felt a twinge in my right knee. Maybe I’d pulled a muscle or maybe it was just a case of early morning cramp. Although the rain had stopped it was still pretty dreich and visibility was near zero. I slithered along some muddy woodland tracks, gritting my teeth through the pain and trying to concentrate on locating the red and white GR signs concealed in the undergrowth to ensure that I didn’t take a fatal wrong turning and lose time in the race to make the bus.

I reckoned that if I could cover the 20km to Corbus by 11am I was in with a shot of reaching Montségur by 4pm and making the bus. There was no time to worry about whether my knee would hold up or not. I just had to grin and bear it and hope that somebody was up there looking down kindly at me.

My father would have been 103 years old today. Born on 3 June 1922, 3 years later his father had died from flu some days after the birth of his younger sister. My Scottish grandmother decided to move the family (my father, his sister, his Scottish grandmother and a couple of aged Scottish aunts) down to live in Cornwall. It is fair to say that my father had a pretty odd upbringing surrounded by Scottish inlaws born in the middle of the 19th century. Anyway, I hoped he was smiling down on me today!

After 3 hours of footslogging in near zero visibility, the clouds miraculously lifted to reveal a fantastic panorama which lifted my spirits inordinately. Even better, my knee was beginning to improve. I reckoned that if I legged it, I was in with a chance of reaching by 11pm.

The path was still quite muddy after the storms on Sunday evening which had wrought havoc across the region. I took a couple of tumbles and looked like a muddied rugby player by the time I reached Corbus bang on schedule at 11am.

Corbus was pretty dormant when I arrived so I motored on through and started to descend a narrow valley flanked witg vertiginous granite cliffs.

Rather incongruously I passed a middle ages lady walking in the opposite direction wearing a pair of sports shoes and carrying a small day pack with a teddy bear in it. Was she English by any chance I wondered to myself?

The final stretch to Montségur was a killer. Two hours of slow progress up a muddy quagmire of a valley where it was almost impossible to get any purchase. Thankfully it wasn’t blisteringly hot or I might not have made it. And then miraculously mythical Montségur hove into view. And what’s more it was only 2.30pm. I had 90 minutes to grab a quick pannini and a beer before catching the bus to Foix.

Montségur seemed a appropriate place to end my walk.

From 1232 Montségur became the seat and capital of the Cathar Church. The castrum was densely populated with around 500 to 600 people, a mix of religious, civilians and military. To the north-east of the castle the remains of some dwellings are still visible today. These are the last witnesses of this settlement.

In 1243 Hugues of Arcis, seneschal of the king of France in Carcassonne and Pierre Amiel, bishop of Narbonne with an army of 10,000 men, laid siege to the fortress. The siege lasted about 11 months, until its tragic end: the surrender on March 16, 1244 where 230 Cathars, not wanting to deny their faith, were burnt at the stake.

There was a small auberge in the village with an eclectic mix of walkers enjoying a leisurely lunch. I ambled into the auberge and asked a young female assistant where the bus stop was. At this point a look of mild confusion clouded the young lady’s face. “Bus stop,” she said.” There is no bus stop here. The nearest place where you can catch a bus is Lavalenet which is 10km away. A taxi to Foix will cost you €150!”

I sat down, ordered a beer and a pannini and chatted to a couple of Dutch walkers who lived in the area. They suggested I try and hitch a lift to Foix. It seemed worth a try. My other options were pretty limited if truth be known.

Just 5 minutes after leaving Montségur the first car that passed me, stopped and offered me a lift to a village 8km from Foix. I didn’t need any time for reflection! Soon I was chatting away with the driver about his job as a wildlife warden in the Montségur area and talking about the effect that climate change was having on the local flora and fauna. What a lovely chap.

I walked the final 8km into Foix without much ado and found my way to the youth hostel, nestled in the old quarter of town below the ramparts of the impressive castle of Foix.

Walk completed, there was only one last thing I needed to do. Drop into the Greek restaurant around the corner and order a large moussaka. After nearly 240km and inordinate adventures, I felt I deserved it! My father, who was partial to moussaka, might have been proud!