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

옷깃만 스쳐도 인연이다 – every person you cross paths with in life, even a total stranger, carries a thread of fate.

Korean Proverb

My challenge for the day couldn’t have been simpler – walk 36km to St Flour and arrive there in time to buy a railway ticket back home on Saturday. Hopefully my boots, which were once again falling apart at the seams, would see me there in one piece!

As I headed out of Le Malzieu-Ville, I couldn’t help giving myself a proverbial pat on the back. I had come a long way, in every sense of the word since my first, ill-fated foray into long distance walking in France in August 1981.

It was the summer of 1981 and I was 17. Cricket lovers may remember it as the summer of Botham’s Ashes. Our walk in the Loire Valley coincided with Ian Botham taking a 5-for at Headingley in the 4th Test and bringing the nation to a standstill!

The plan was to spend a week walking the Loire Valley on the GR3, visiting chateaux such as Chenonceux, Chambord and Azay-le-Rideau. What could possibly go wrong?

The trip got off to a sticky start. Myself and two 16 year old school friends boarded a train at Waterloo which took us all the way to Paris via a cross channel ferry which we boarded at Dover.

We spent much of the night on the ferry downing as much duty free booze as we could handle and by the time we arrived in Paris we were plastered and knackered. It was the first time any of us had been let loose on the Continent without parental supervision!

The only sensible option seemed to be to crash out on a bench in the Tuileries Gardens before making our way across Paris to catch a train south to the Loire Valley.

This proved an unwise move as the next thing we knew was that a posse of irate French gendarmes had appeared demanding we leave the Tuileries Gardens ‘toute de suite’!

Sometime the same day we did successfully manage to catch a train to the Loire Valley and began walking from somewhere near Azay-le-Rideau.

At this point our plan to visit the chateaux of the Loire began to rapidly unravel. For a start it transpired that the GR3 didn’t actually pass by any of the Loire chateaux. Secondly, it turned out that early August wasn’t a great time to go walking in France – the mercury hit the mid 30s and none of us had brought any suntan cream or headcover! One of my friends, a boy called Piglet had a shock of red hair and within a day had developed horrific blisters on his feet while his face had turned beetroot with sunburn!

We never got to see the chateau at Azay-le-Rideau or any other of the Loire chateaux. The nearest we got to the chateau at Azay-le-Rideau was a nuclear reactor at Chinon where it was so hot we decided to take a swim in the Loire despite the nuclear hazards nearby!

By the end of the second day we were all completely knackered and decided to throw in the towel and decamp to a campsite which boasted a swimming pool and a large number of lissome bikini clad French teenagers. We’d only covered about 30km but what the hell – visiting French chateaux could wait til we were middle aged!

Although the trip was a bit of a let down in terms of hooking up with members of the opposite sex (our O level French chat up lines of voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir? didn’t meet with any success!) one highlight of the trip was becoming addicted to Croque Monsieurs! These were the days before every French town had a take away pizza outlet. In the early 80s every self respecting café in rural France served a Croque Monsieur or Madame as a lunchtime snack.

So where does the iconic Croque Monsieur originate from? The name itself gives a clue. Croque comes from croquer, meaning to crunch, and monsieur simply means gentleman. Put it together and you get something like “Mr. Crunch,” which feels about right when you hear that crust crack under your fork.

The Croque Monsieur  made its first appearance in the late 19th century, with references dating back to the 1890s. By 1910, it had earned a place on the menu of a café on Boulevard des Capucines in Paris. From there, it became a quick favorite for anyone wanting a hot bite that felt a little more indulgent than the usual café fare.

One story credits Michel Lunarca, a café owner in the early 1900s, with the name. When asked about the meat in a sandwich, he joked that it was “viande de monsieur,” which loosely translates to “gentleman’s meat.” 

The sandwich even earned a literary mention in 1918 when Proust wrote about it in À la recherche du temps perdu. By then, it had already become a Parisian staple, spreading from café counters to brasseries and eventually finding its way across France.

I headed off from Le Malzieu-Ville shortly after 7am. The hotel proprietor seemed less than convinced that walking all the way to Saint Flour was a good idea. The mercury was forecast to hit 40C after lunch.

With this in mind I decided on my strategy for the day. I would leg it as fast as possible to the village of Ruynes-en-Margeride (22km), try and rest up for an hour in a local café , enjoying a croque monsieur and a beer and then amble over to Saint-Flour while hoping the heat wouldn’t prematurely curtail my walk in Michael Mosley fashion.

If I am being brutally honest, the day’s walk wasn’t the most photogenic or exciting of the last few weeks. The gently rolling countryside was dotted with isolated farmsteads and Aubrac cattle grazed peacefully in the fields. Apart from that there was little to get excited about. There was a café open in Ruynes-en-Margeride which served cold beers but sadly croque monsieurs weren’t on the menu as they didn’t do food!

I could feel the mercury rising inexorably as I sat supping my cold beer as if it was my last. It was tempting to spend the entire afternoon under the shade of the café’s parasol, watching the world go by.

The afternoon walk to Saint Flour was enervating to put it mildly. The chap who designed the GR4 route had thrown in a couple of gutbusting ascents up the sides of steep wooded valleys that I could have done without!

I arrived in Saint Flour shortly after 5pm – just over 8 hours to complete the 37km. There was time to explore Saint Flour which is divided into a mediaeval city perched high on a rock and the more modern development where my hotel was located.

With my train back to Montauban not due to leave until 3pm on Saturday, there would be ample opportunity to explore the old city in greater detail tomorrow.

As I finished this stage of my walk across France and sat at a table outside my hotel sipping a celebratory cold beer, it was time for reflection.

Nearly 900km covered since I set off from Menton in May. Another 1,100km to go next year. So many wonderful memories, superb weather and fantastic scenery.

But perhaps more important than the kilometres covered, were the host of kind and interesting people I met on the walk. It is always a blessing to share the company of strangers.

As the Korean proverb, 옷깃만 스쳐도 인연이다 says, every person you cross paths with in life, even a total stranger for a few fleeting moments, carries a thread of fate and leaves your life enriched.

And as for my trusty boots? Hmm, I think another visit to the cobbler in Montauban may be on the cards before I resume my walk across France from Saint Flour next year!