Category: Uncategorized
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Day 4: Pamiers to Gabré (38 km) Surviving Swiss Snoring
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…
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Day 3: Mirepoix to Pamiers (34 km) Unexpected encounters.
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…
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Day 2: Montréal to Mirepoix (38 km) Mackerel power to Mirepoix.
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…
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Day 1: Carcassonne to Montréal (26.5 km) – Return to Cathar Country.
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…
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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…
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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,…
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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.…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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…
Pilgrim's Progress - Long Distance Walks in Europe and the UK 