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Day 7: Roquefeuil to Foix (43 km) Race against time for a bus back home.
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…
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Day 6: Puivert to Roquefeuil (20 km) Fine dining.
Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness. Auguste Escoffier Ok I’m going to start with an admission. This blog has less to do with walking and more to so with fine dining in a tiny village called Roquefeuil which was my destination for the day. As I left Puivert, it was overcast and drizzling.…
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Day 5: Quillan to Puivert (21 km) In Troubadour Country
The earth has its music for those who will listen;Its bright variations forever abound.With all of the wonders that God has bequeathed us,There’s nothing that thrills like the magic of sound. Reginald Holmes – The Magic of Sound The barman in the Glacier Bar in Quillan had got it wrong. After I’d managed to get…
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Day 4: Camp-sur-l’Agly to Quillan (36km) Weird things happen at Bugarach.
This is the 183rd end-of-the-world prophecy since antiquity Pierre Delord – Mayor of Bugarach Sometimes things go pear shaped for no good reason. Today was one of those days! The previous evening had been spent in a remote farmhouse gite at Camp-sur-l’Agly in the company of another solo hiker ftom the Marne department of France…
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Day 3: Padern to Camp-sur-l’Agly (36 km) Bar crawl.
I’d rather have a beer and memories than a six-pack and amnesia. Anon Today ( actually the day before yestrrday as I write this in Puivert waiting for my pizza to artive in an hour!) and the was meant to be an easy 31km amble from Padern to Camp-sur-Angly. After yesterday’s brutal heat I was…
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Day 2: Durban-Corbières to Padern (36km). Just one thing.
In the Philippines they have lovely screensTo protect you from the glareIn the Malay States there are hats like platesWhich the Britishers won’t wearAt twelve noon the natives swoonAnd no further work is doneBut mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun Song by Noël Coward There were times today when I didn’t…
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Day 1: Le Refuge Littorel Sainte Lucie to Durban-Corbières (34 km) Penguin’s Progress.
France ! ô belle contrée, ô terre généreuseQue les dieux complaisants formaient pour être heureuse,Tu ne sens point du Nord les glaçantes horreurs ;Le Midi de ses feux t’épargne les fureurs À la France – André Chénier I arrived in Port-la-Nouvelle late yesterday afternoon having taken a train from Montauban. Port-la-Nouvelle is a busy seaport on the…
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The Cathar Way – Butchery, Buggery and Black Friars.
Catharism was the greatest heretical challenge faced by the Catholic Church in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The attempt by the Cathars to find an answer to the fundamental religious and philosophical problems posed by the existence of evil, combined with their success in persuading large numbers of Christians in the West that they had…
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In the Footsteps of Major Thompson.
People ask me, ‘What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?’ and my answer must at once be, ‘It is of no use.’ If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life…
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Walks around the World
If the thing is feasible, the first to do it ought to be an Englishman Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne I turn 61 today. The sunflowers in the field below our house have finally been harvested and although temperatures are still in the low 20s, the clocks have been put back…
Welcome to my blog! I’m Jonathan, a 60 year old Brit who is passionate about long distance walking.
In May 2024 I’m setting off from Land’s End to walk 1,200 miles, the length of Britain, to John O’Groats.
Join me on this adventure as I provide daily blog updates of my LEJOG walk.
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Pilgrim's Progress - Long Distance Walks in Europe and the UK 