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

Fair is foul, and foul is fair, hover through the fog and filthy air. Macbeth Act 1, Scene 1 – William Shakespeare When I poked my nose out of the window this morning, I could sense that in terms of the weather, all was not well with the world in this corner of south west…

Read more

The truly rich are those who enjoy what they have. Yiddish Proverb Entering Cathy’s house at the end of a 31km walk from Arès to Moulin des Baronnies was like stepping back in time. A time when life was simpler. The previous night’s mosquito attacks were quickly forgotten. The proprietor of the gite drove me…

Read more

If you think you are too small to make a difference, you haven’t spent a night with a mosquito. African proverb With the benefit of hindsight, it probably wasn’t the cleverest of ideas to down a litre of cold beer in a café in front of the cathedral at Bertrand-de-Comminges, shortly after 2pm! My excuse…

Read more

Be wary then, best safety lies in fear. Hamlet Act 1, Sc 3 – William Shakespeare I was happy to have survived the night in the museum and wasn’t keem to repeat the experience in a hurry. People sometimes wax lyrical about the ‘good old days’ when life was simpler before the advent of the…

Read more

If people don’t like Marxism, they should blame the British Museum. Mikhail Gorbachev I’m not quite sure what I expected when I booked the pilgrim accommodation at Augirein. A hearty meal and convivial conversation with a kindred spirit? A decent night’s sleep with a fair number of creature comforts – shower, flushing loo etc? A…

Read more

Yesterday, upon the stair,I met a man who wasn’t thereHe wasn’t there again todayI wish, I wish he’d go away… Antigonish – Edward Lear At around 11am I received a strange SMS. The man (Roland) I’d booked to spend the night with at Montjoie-en-Couserans had gone to Lourdes for the day. He didn’t know exactly…

Read more

Laugh and the world laughs with you, snore and you sleep alone. Anthony Burgess Hopes that I would have a peaceful night’s slumber in the dormitory room I was sharing with Andy were soon shattered. Within minuted of turning off the lights, Andy began to snore. At first quite gently but growing in volume like…

Read more

There is a tide in the affairs of menWhich, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;Omitted, all the voyage of their lifeIs bound in shallows and in miseries.On such a full sea are we now afloat;And we must take the current when it serves,Or lose our ventures. William Shakespeare – Julius Caesar I would…

Read more

Every place is a goldmine. You have only to give yourself time, sit in a teahouse watching the passers-by, stand in a corner of the market, go for a haircut. You pick up a thread – a word, a meeting, a friend of a friend of someone you have just met – and soon the…

Read more

Kill them all and let God sort them out. Arnaud Amalric, Cistercian monk, during the siege of Béziers in 1209AD. Growing up, I was the bane of my parents’ life. Initially it was dinosaurs, then it moved on to Roman villas with mosaics before morphing into an unhealthy obsession with mediaeval castles. Family holidays became…

Read more