Category: Uncategorized
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Day 13: Bruges to Oloron Sainte Marie (42 km) Celebrity Chefs.
Good food is always a trouble and its preparation should be regarded as a labour of love. Elisabeth David Today was a marathon of a day – 42km or 26.2km as the crow flies or as Pheidippides ran in 490BC from the Battle of Marathon to Athens with the message…
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Day 12: Lourdes to Bruges (30 km) Saints and Sinners.
Every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future. Oscar Wilde Corinne was a saint. She could, she told me, have charged a good deal more than 25 euros a night for a room if she did AirBnB. But she didn’t because she simply preferred the pleasure of…
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Day 11: Bagnères de Bigorre to Lourdes (34 km) Do you believe in Miracles?
Since most scientists are just a bit religious, and most religious are seldom wholly unscientific, we find humanity in a comical position. His scientific intellect believes in the possibility of miracles inside a black hole, while his religious intellect believes in them outside it. William Golding Do you believe in…
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Day 10: Moulin des Baronnies to Bagnères de Bigorre (23km) A Turn in the Weather.
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…
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Day 9: Arès to Moulin des Baronnies (31 km) The Simple Life
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…
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Day 8: Saint Pé-d’Ardet to Arnès (35km) Mosquitos,a crocodile and Moquequa.
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,…
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Day 7: Augirein to Saint-Pé-d’Ardet (32km) Beware of bears and other hazards.
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…
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Day 6: Saint-Lizier to Augirein (33 km) Night at the Museum!
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 –…
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Day 5: Gabré to Saint Lizier (43 km) The Man who wasn’t there.
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…
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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…
