Today is the second rest day of our journey.  Our chief planner (Diane) artfully scheduled this after a long stage (18 miles, 3200′ of climbing)  and our next shorter, but steep climbing stage (probably 11 miles and 3000′ of climbing). Well done, Diane!

Miam miam dodo? It is French “child-speak” (and also the title of a French guidebook). Miam miam is how the French spell “Yum-yum” and means “food”.

Dodo is a contraction of “dormir”, to sleep.  Thus,  dodo means sleeping!

So, how do we eat and sleep on this Camino?

On the more popular walks, places to eat and sleep are easily found. Because there are more hikers, there are more services. Because there are more services, there are more hikers.

This trail (Geneva to Le Puy) is stunningly beautiful, but sparce in hikers and services. We noted that we’ve seen only 7 other Pilgrims (hikers) in 2 weeks of  walking.  For comparison, on the Camino Frances we would see 50 – 250/day. On the Del Norte Camino, maybe 20 – 25 a day.  Here, it’s less than 1/day. That means services will NOT be geared to Pilgrims.

A couple of other notes.  This trail goes through a remote section of France, with lots of very small villages that have no boulangerie or store or restaurant. Nothing.  That has to be part of your planning.

Also, given that we are hikers (no car) who probably just did 6 or more hours of hiking that day, we are likely NOT going to walk 5 miles to an open restaurant in another town!

The other challenge,  which we’ve heard from multiple French people, is the social/ employment effects of the pandemic.  The first is getting your employees back.  The second is getting services back.  Benefits for unemployment and business support are still available here in France, so getting workers (and even some businesses)  back can be a challenge.

All that really matters to us is that services are currently harder to come by on this journey than pre-pandemic.

What is clear is that you can’t solve the “Dodo” problem without considering the “Miam miam” problem.

So let’s talk about the options available, then we’ll talk about how those played out on our hiking, so far.

As we are typing this on a phone (very tedious) , it won’t have all the nice details, links or pictures, but hopefully will help. If you look up the location and name of the places we list below on Google maps, you will see lots of photos of those places. Maybe at a later date, we’ll pull photos and insert them into this post.

Dodo: So,  what are the options?

Hotel: In bigger villages, that is possible. Ideally, there is a restaurant at that hotel (that’s open … not always the case! ) or a nearby restaurant (that’s open).

Apartment/ house to rent:  Very comfortable, but a food source is needed.

B&B: Nice room, with bedroom, bathroom and breakfast. Sometimes dinner is available.

Gite: Sort of a hostel, but can have private bedroom or shared bathroom. These are actually well distributed throughout our journey, but we prefer to have our own “space” (bathroom, bedroom).

Accueille Jacquaire: These are rooms in a private home made available to Pilgrims on a “donation” basis. Dinner and breakfast are included.  We’ve never stayed in one, but our French friends have and thoroughly enjoyed them!

Camping: Sort of.  There are campgrounds with permanent RV’s, Yurts or tents available to rent. Again, we’ve never done that, but our friends have.

While there are more options, that covers 99% of them.

Miam Miam: What about eating?

First, some background. In France, most (almost all) businesses close on Sunday and Monday. You really have to think through your food plans on Friday and Saturday or you will find yourself rather hungry for a couple days!

Restaurant: Always a good choice, if they are open and close enough to walk to.  Another consideration is price. Usually, the restaurants are fairly priced, but sometimes they can be pricey. Given that we are “eating out” three meals a day for a month or so … it better be an outstanding restaurant to justify a high price.

Bar: Bars here are like Diners or cafe shops back home.

Grocery Stores: Most of our breakfasts and lunches come from this route. Some dinners come from this source.

Demi-Pension: Many of the above types of Dodo’s can provide a Demi-pension. That means dinner plus breakfast. On this route, there were far fewer that provided the demi-pension than we’ve seen in the past.

Freeze-dried backpacker food! Yes, you read that right! We carried two evening’s worth of backpacking food … and have used them both!  There are some places where it is very difficult to find a good supply.

With that as background, let’s walk through our stays, so far:

Geneva: We stayed in a hotel,  Les Tournelles. Great location on the Rhone, close to downtown and the start of the Camino. Food came from restaurants and a nearby grocery store with a fantastic delicatessen.  We stocked up there on snacks (energy bars, etc).

Mt Sion:  We stayed in a hotel, Hotel The Originals,  next to “Santa’s village”. Seriously!  They had a restaurant which provided dinner and breakfast, but not lunch. As there was no store or restaurant on the way, we used our Geneva supplies for lunch the next day.

Chaumont: A rented home (450 sq ft). “La Famile Revillon”. Remote location. We purchased an abbreviated dinner (lots of which had just been picked from the garden.  Diane was in heaven as there were lots of tomatoes.) from the proprietors, but were on our own for breakfast.

Seyssel: Nice hotel (Logis Hotel du Rhone), with local restaurants and stores.  We had to take a trail variant to reach this place and follow the Rhone to the main trail 3 km further down the river.

Chanaz: Restaurant/ B&B (Le Doux Nid). Dinner and breakfast at restaurant, a local store for lunch supplies.

Yenne: Another hotel (Hotel de Fer a Cheval).  The proprietor wasn’t there when we arrived, they were out playing since WE would be the only guests that night. Dinner and breakfast were at the hotel, lunch from a store.

St Genix. B&B (Le Maison Fleure de Frangipanier) . Christophe, the proprietor,  was an eccentric, but kind and extremely talented host.  He has worked as a sommelier at a 3 star Michelin restaurant and works winters as restaurant director at a Swiss Alps ski resort.  Very good food!

St Ondras: B&B … very nice (Le Pas de l’Ane).  No dinner anywhere nearby. We used the first of our backpack meals here!

La Grande Lampe ( Le Mas Dauphinois): B&B without the second “B”. Really nice hosts.  Room was a converted garage with silk sheets! No restaurants open, anywhere. Host took us to a “pizza vending machine” for our dinner. 😒

St. Andres: A hotel (Hotel de l’Europe) straight out of “the Shining”. It was the only game in town, seriously.  The other hotel actually closed on Sunday and Monday.! The proprietors were very nice though.

Primerette: Gite (private room, shared bathroom) (Chambres au Grand Calme). As there were no other guests, the bathroom was all ours. Dinner and breakfast included.

St Romain: Cottage rental on farm (Une Pause Sur la Coline). Nice location,  on a working farm,  but no services,  and a lot of farm flies!  We used our second freeze-dried meals here.

Chavanay: Another Gite .(Le Pigeonnier) Dinner and breakfast provided.

Bourg-Argental: Two- bedroom apartment (Le Square) in the downtown of a beautiful village with lots of resources and a super host! We hit the jackpot with this stopover!

Booking: About half of these were booked on Booking.com, and the rest using guidebooks and the internet (and Google Translate!)  Diane does research, looking at ratings and reviews.  Most times, we are content, but on occasion we get a unique surprise or two.  And that’s part of the adventure!

Americans in France: It’s probably worth noting that on this trail, in this part of France, there aren’t many Americans. While we met one American woman hiker early on,  we’ve been told by our hosts and others that they don’t often see Americans. Their reception of us, however, has been phenomenal! Americans are well liked in this area (we’ve even heard the “thank you for helping France out in WWII” story).  We have been introduced to neighbors, friends and even had others call friends/ family to say “they’ve met Americans”. It’s actually pretty heartwarming!

All for now,  Bill and Diane.