Today was 12 miles,  bringing our total to 243 miles. We have now arrived at our second rest day location,  Cahors.

Yesterday afternoon we made our arrival in Vers, a town we had visited two years ago while navigating the River Lot on a rented boat. The village view is beautiful, with the Vers river feeding into the Lot river at this point.

In short order, we were down at the river, checking out the boat lock that one must negotiate in order to continue sailing up river. We very much remember doing so with Kathy and Doug Brownell. 

We knew that our French/ Swiss friends would be in town, so we arraigned to have dinner as a group that evening. It was a hoot! Mangled French was the order of the day! Great credit to our friends who put up with our efforts and even (when they were done laughing) politely informed us that “that’s really not something you should say in public”. Oops! I guess Google doesn’t have all the answers!

The six of us dined and told stories until way past Pilgrim bedtime. It was truly fun and we hope that our paths cross again some time. Here is a photo of the six of us.

Today’s walk had two features we haven’t yet encountered; an extended walk right along the river Lot, and getting lost! Yep, it had to happen!

Because our primary plan was to walk the GR65 from Le Puy to St. Jean Pied de Port, we didn’t have a lot of detailed information about the Rocamadour detour. That hasn’t been a problem because the signage has been excellent … until today.

With the first 6 or so miles away from the river (not sure why), following the trail is important as there is no other easy way to assure yourself you’re on track. For the first time in our journey, the sign frequency was, at times, between 0.5 and 1.0 miles between signs. After more than a mile without a sign, the alarms went off.

Using Google maps, Bill pieced together a route that should allow us to intercept the correct path. We did, and all’s well that ends well.

Back on the course, we encountered the river and followed it for another 6 miles to Cahors, passing place after place we had seen just two years ago.

Here, two years ago, we loaned a water hose to a fellow boat cruiser who, in exchange, gave us a bottle of wine (we don’t drink 🙄).

Here,  we tied off and had some local kids want to use our boat as a diving board … no.

At other times, we just enjoyed the solitude of walking along the quiet river. 

Tomorrow will be our second rest day. Our bodies can use the break.

Farewell, for now.

Today was 0 official miles walked, keeping our total at 243 miles,  overall.

Ah, the life! We slept in until 7:30, didn’t pack a backpack, then enjoyed a leisurely breakfast! A person could get used to this!

We took a walk and found ourselves a second breakfast (why not?), then grocery shopped for a few odds and ends needed for our hike tomorrow. (It is very common in France that stores are either closed on Sunday, or opened for a limited time. Such was the case here, where the store closed at 12:45).

We then decided lunch was in order (didn’t we just get done with two breakfasts? Yes, but…) We stopped at a local deli, bought some sandwiches and visited Pont Valantre, which we’d visited two years ago. 

We ate our lunch by the river lock, hoping to watch the boats transit. Interestingly, we quickly found ourselves assisting boaters who hadn’t yet figured the ins and outs of lock keeping. It was fun to remember those skills.

Tomorrow we cross that bridge, but keep going for another 260 miles or so. Here are photos of us getting ready for that adventure. 

Now, for a nap in preparation for tomorrow! Au revoir!

17 miles walked today, bringing our overall total to 260 miles.

Today’s walk started with a brisk wake up; a nearly vertical climb up out of Cahors. With the heart properly pumping, we stopped to enjoy the view. 

Once back in the hiking mode, we noticed something we hadn’t seen in about a week … other Pelerins!

Pushing on, we hit 12 miles before stopping for lunch.  Our typical procedure is to buy a baguette, some cheese, and some lunch type meat in a town and carry that until we find a suitable place and time for lunch. Today it was a small tree about 20 yards off the trail that gave us our picnic locale. 

Satisfied, but a bit sleepy (we really need to figure out how to take a trail nap …), we pushed on for our final 5 miles, passing field after field of sunflowers.

We have now arrived at a small B&B way out in the country. Tonight’s dinner will be farm house style, with 9 Pelerins, and the table language will be French. We’ll do our best!🤔

We miss you all …

Today was 14 miles, bringing us to 274 miles, overall. We have now logged enough miles to go from our home to our daughter’s home in Nevada, by foot!

Before going on to today’s hike, it’s worth spending a moment in last night’s dinner. We stayed at a B&B, which also serves dinner, farm style. The food was excellent, but the presentations were works is art. He is the salad: 

We encourage you to zoom in on the plate to see the details in the presentation. Amazing! (We ate the salad, nonetheless! ).

Today’s hike was once again through rolling farmland, using the shelter of canyon trees to make the journey less hot. 

Which leads up to today’s story, and actually the story of the last week. In certain areas as we walk along, we noticed that the trees have NO leaves, only a moss covering. We at first thought that there was flooding because the leaves start again some 15′ up, and the moss is below. In Cahors, we asked about it and got the answer to that question and more … like, why didn’t we see other hikers from Rocamadour to Vers  Here goes:

Over the last few years, the Boxwood forests in France (and other European countries) have been infested by the Boxwood moth/ worm, from China. These critters are voracious and will devour a forest in just a few days. We’ve had two separate people tell us that, during the infestation, you can actually hear the munching!

To travel, these worms spin a silk line web and drop from the trees onto animals etcetera, to get around (of course, the moth version can travel up to 10 kilometers).

We were told that just 2 weeks ago, there were Billions of these worms dropping off trees between Rocamadour and Vers … that’s why there were no other hikers! They all spoke French and knew better!

We probably encountered 20 or so in our whole journey, which made them a novelty and not really a nuisance.

On today’s journey we saw an official sign warning of the infestation, but all we saw was the damage … no actual worms. 

Enough of the crawly stuff. We have laundry, showers and exploring to do!

Today was 17 miles hiked, bringing our total to 291 miles walked, overall.

We continue walking through rolling farmland in this region of France. One of the interesting features of this region is the ancient desire to build the towns on the tops of hills. As our walk takes us from village to village, we’re constantly going uphill to a village, then down to the farmland, then up to the village etc. The photo, below, is two miles into the hike, where we have descended from Lauzerte (in the background) and then immediately climbed the next hill. Repeat and Rinse.

Along the way, we passed what looked like an enterprising young kid’s idea of fun. A bicycle ramp that sends the rider and bike into the lake! What could be wrong with that? 

Okay, on to today’s supplemental topic: Embracing the crumb! Regular readers will know that Bill is severely crumb challenged. He cannot eat a croissant (the national breakfast of France), without leaving crumbs everywhere. He assumed these messes left on the table, the chair, and the floor were a grievous offense to the French national sense of propriety. Add such, he’s been worried about being summarily kicked out of this beautiful country.

It was only this morning when Diane pointed out to Bill that the breakfast tables don’t even have bread plates. More so, the dinner bread is supposed to be placed directly on the table … it is not proper to place your bread on your plate.

The result? In every case, crumbs will be left behind! In other words, the crumb is the symbol of fine bread dining! Proper honor is given to the bread when you leave a monument of crumbs behind!

Oh! I’ve been honoring bread all along and never realized it. Tomorrow I will dribble crumbs with pride. C’est le pain!

Today was 13 miles, giving us a total of 304 miles overall. We will have shorter days for the next couple of days as we will take a suggested 19 mile day and divide it in half. Our feet can use a break.

Today was 75% walking along the Garonne river. Beautiful! 

More correctly, we walked along the canal which is alongside the river.

This canal is used, nowadays, almost exclusively for pleasure craft (canal cruisers), like what we rented in the canal du midi in 2011.

For whatever reason, we saw more Pellerin on today’s walk than we’ve seen since maybe our very first stage out of Le Puy. 

So, what’s this about a route between the seas?  Well, back in the 1500’s, France was having difficulty getting goods from the Atlantic region around to the Mediterranean side. The typical sailing route was to go around Spain/Portugal, enter through the straights of Gibraltar, then in towards the French Mediterranean. Except Spain and Portugal had a whole bunch of pirates! As did Northern Africa! Shipping by land was inefficient, so, ‘what to do’?

The solution was to use the Garonne River, which coursed from Bordeaux on the Atlantic, inland as far as Toulouse. From Toulouse to the Mediterranean, they built a canal,  the Canal du Midi, in the late 1500’s/early 1600’s! Here is a map, to help put the pieces together. 

The Blue line is the Garonne River and Canal du Midi. Enough history for today. Hope all is well with each of you.

Today was 11 miles, so our total is now 315 miles.

We spent the night in an old, but nice hotel L’Horloge (the clock), in Auvillar. This village played an important role in medieval times, as it was the center for tax collection. At harvest time locals would have to bring a portion of their crops to pay their tax bill. Each of the 12 sides of this building is used for a different crop. 

Today’s walk was similar to several of the recent stages, rolling hills and farmland. Diane added in some Real Estate shopping, but couldn’t decide between the castle 

And the gentrified farm house: 

Oh well, we’ll just have to hold off until we can reach a decision!

For those interested in the overall route, here is a screen capture of the Le Puy route, as provided by Gronze.com.

Le Puy is where were started and “SJP de Port” is (nine or less) where we finish.

While we have a guide book that we carry, each day we go onto Gronze to pull down a daily route and elevation map.

This map is actually for both today and tomorrow, as we split a long stage into two shorter stages. It is read from right to left. We started in Auvillar (right side) and stopped today in Miradoux (center). The elevation chart lets us know how much climbing we have that day.

And that’s the way we do it, here in France!

Today was another 10 miles, bringing our total to 325 miles. We passed a sign today that helped put it on perspective. 

While difficult to read, if you zoom in on the right side, you’ll see that it says, “999 km to Santiago”. For non- metric speaking people, that’s about 620 miles. We’ve traveled 325 miles, meaning that we’ve now gone only about a third of the distance to Santiago. We will not go the whole distance this year!

Today was more rolling hills and farmland. While there are multiple different crops being grown, the predominant seems to be the tournesol, or sunflower. 

So, le weekend. Yes, the French word for weekend is le weekend. It is a protected time for many French villages. We arrived in Lectoure at 2:00pm, when many of the businesses were closing for le weekend. We found one kind cafe that remained open for us to dine, but all others were fermee (closed). There is a store that will reopen at 3:30 for a couple of hours, so we will catch that, then. If you miss it, they will not be open tomorrow. As tomorrow is a rather long stage, we will want to be stocked up with supplies while we can.

Hope you all are enjoying Le Weekend!

Today was 16 miles, bringing our total to 341 miles. We’ve walked about as far as our home in the SF area to Los Angeles.

The official distance for this stage was over 20 miles. There was a “variant route” that shaved off 3 miles. We took the decision to abandon both and follow the local two lane highway (thanks, Google maps) to bring it down to just under 16 miles. Why?

First, the hike. As soon as we left, we could see these three balloons in the distance. 

We were hiking in the direction of the balloons, but they descended shortly after the photo. It seems an unforecasted storm was coming in and they didn’t want to be in the wrong place! For us, the storm was a gift as it kept the day’s high temperatures down.

Over the last several days, we’ve described the hiking as rolling hills and farmland. To be clear, it is beautiful and enjoyable; but it is rolling hills and farmland!

About 5 days ago, Diane started having problems with shin splints, a common runner’s injury, but not something she has had in the past. So far, we haven’t been able to make it go away, and walking 12 – 20 miles a day doesn’t help.

For that reason, we decided to do the shorter 17 mile route … then look for an even shorter way. We were able to bring it below 16 (barely), by spending 6 miles or so on a small highway, like this: 

About 4 miles from the finish, we went through a very small town that had a bar open. We asked for ice and were able to ease some of Diane’s discomfort. Once at our B&B, we were able to get some more ice. Hopefully, we can get it under control. Otherwise, we may need to look at some transport options for Diane … at least for a little while!

Today was 10 miles, bringing our total to 351 miles.

The village of Condom is located on the Gers river. 

The Gers river, like the Lot river,  flows into the Garonne river (path between the seas). Also, like the Garonne and the Lot rivers,  you can charter a river cruising boat for several days through several weeks on this river.

Today’s walk was noteworthy for three reasons: A bit more forest coverage. 

The emergence of grapes (along with the sunflowers)  as a cultivated product. 

And thirdly, for a bit of a lessening of Diane’s shin pains (so far, so good) 😃.

So, signal to noise, robustness and French.

The French language sounds beautiful when spoken by a capable speaker. Likewise, their cuisine is amazing … and precise. Doing both right requires a high signal to noise ratio (the ratio of what you intended to communicate versus the background noise, or background mess). You want that intricate food dish to look just right and not like a “plop on a plate”. High “signal to noise”. Similarly,  you want the French words to sound “just so”, and not like something you just coughed (perhaps a bit like English)

To accommodate our English speaking lack of precision, the English language is pretty robust. You can pronounce it in a whole bunch of unintended ways (accents) and the message. .. pretty much it still gets across. Net, the English language is “robust”, which fits our less precise nature.

The French language,  on the contrary, is rather precise (less robust) in keeping with their great sense of the aesthetic.

The challenge comes in when a native English speaker attempts to learn and speak French! That person (Bill and Diane) attempt to say things in French, having the American language sense of robustness. It doesn’t go so well!

This morning, we attempted to say “cours”, meaning ‘course’. All our hosts could hear was “cœur”, meaning ‘heart’. For us non- robust communicators, we couldn’t (for the life of us) hear the difference! After 15 minutes of hilarious efforts, we thought we understood, sort of.

We are learning that learning French is a whole lot more than learning a bunch of words. We’ll keep plugging at it. Being able to talk about life, and things, to a local French in their language more than justifies the effort

Au revoir!