Final Day, 18: St Julien to Le Puy, The Line is Drawn

2022 Via Gebennensis

Today was 14 miles walked,  1,000′ climbed.  We arrived!

The journey had far more traffic than we’re used to …

But still had the beauty we’ve come to expect

And, we crossed the Loire River!

We’ve now traveled from the Rhone-Alps, to the Massif Pilat and on to the Loire valley! For us, amazing!

The total for this journey was 242 miles and 30,100′ of climbing.  We have now walked, in three Caminos,  from Geneva to Muxia/Finnesterre  … a distance of 1,320 miles. Among our 5 European walks, we’ve now walked at bit over 2,100 miles … approaching a length similar to the whole of the Pacific Crest Trail ( from Mexico to Canada).

So, how did this hike compare?

Beauty- wise:  This was, hands down,  the most “every day jaw dropping” beautiful! The Del Norte? The ocean views were the best. The other walks? Wonderful! But this one takes it.

Remote-wise: For someone without local language skills, this would be a tough one!  Such limited resources and consistently closed businesses; you really needed to be able to get information from locals who probably don’t speak English.  Probably the sister walk to this one (Le Puy to St Jean Pied de Port) would be the next most difficult … but there were more resources consistent available to the hiker.

This was also remote for the lack of fellow Pilgrims. We’re going to keep our count at 7 “through-hikers”. As we approached Le Puy, the numbers grew, but we’ve found that there are a lot of 3 – 10 day hikes in and around Le Puy that draw the numbers.

Toughness of stages: Probably this journey is the toughest, yet, but a close tie with the Del Norte. The Del Norte had longer average stages (15 mi/day) vs this one (13.4 mi/day), lasted much longer (41 days vs 18),  with roughly (1,600’/day of climbing vs 1,700′ avg for this one). This Geneva to Le Puy journey, however, had some consistently difficult surfaces to walk on, particularly with the steep grades. We’re probably just getting older and don’t remember the Del Norte pain, but this one seemed tougher.

So what’s next?  We’re still working on what we will do with the rest of this trip (more to come later).  We are sure that,  God willing and our health allows,  we will walk, in the next few years, through Switzerland, through the Alps and in to Italy to connect up with the 2019 walk we did from Lucca to Rome.

More later. Thank you for reading and being a part of our adventure.

Day 19 +: Camino Transitions

2022 Via Gebennensis

We’re still walking about 10 miles a day,  but as tourists! It’s hard to sit!

Changes: We arrived in Le Puy, France on Thursday and quickly celebrated, but unpacked nothing! We had shipped our one suitcase to Carcassone, France, and had a reservation at that B&B for Friday night … one night only.

Why were we moving so quickly? Our original plan was to finish our hike and then do a canal boat on the Canal du Midi, which typically requires starting on Saturdays.

It is an extraordinarily fun and relaxing thing to do … except after 3 weeks of hiking, our backs needed a break. Even though relaxing,  the canal boat line handling, the smaller bunks, etc,  seemed like more than our backs were willing to deliver, so we canceled that plan.

But, what to do with that 7 or 8 new- found days?  Too many choices …

We thought about spending a couple more nights in Carcassone, a beautiful town with a walled city,

And excellent dining (duck breast)!

Unfortunately, our host B&B was sold out! We had to move the next morning!

Staying at another place in Carcassone didn’t look promising, so we finally decided to head on to the third thing on our original list of “to do’s” on this trip:  Go to Girona,  Spain!

Girona is a Spanish community north of Barcelona and has become the European home for most non-European professional cyclists. As cycling junkies, we had to go there!  (The food and the history are also excellent! )

Staying in Girona bought us a couple of days to pull together our plans for our remaining 2 weeks. And it was beautiful!

What we knew was that we had plane tickets home, departing from Malaga, Spain (South of Spain, almost to Gibraltar) on the 3rd of October. What to do until then?

We have decided to spend about a week in Valencia, Spain, on the coast very close to town, then spend the final week in Malaga, again on the coast.

We will enjoy visiting the towns, relaxing and eating too much.

If you know us well, you know that we NEVER leave planning to the last minute. We usually have things nailed down a year in advance. Not this time.

The upside was that last-minute bookings, late September, were really reduced in price! The downside … too many choices/decisions to make in too little time!

We feel good about the plans we have but will very likely go back to our old way … plans on hand in advance.

We hope all are doing well. We miss family and friends.

The List: What it Takes to Walk

2019 Wirewalker L'Italiano

Another year, another country and a few hundred more miles of walking. This is something we truly enjoy, but recognize that it might not be for everyone. That’s okay.

This year, we are walking the Via Francigena, an ancient walking path from England to Rome (and beyond). Our plan is to do a short section of it, from Lucca, Italy to Rome. About 250 miles.

This walk is a bit less supported than our prior walks in Spain and France. The impact to us is that we won’t be able to send a suitcase ahead to the finish line. There is no local service that will do provide the shipping and storage for us.  Everything that we need for the WHOLE trip must fit on our backs!

That suitcase has always been our “pot of gold at the end of the rainbow”; our chance to get out of the trail clothes that we’d worn for weeks on end. (While we wash these clothes every day, they DO need a break!).

Okay, so what do we bring for 6 plus weeks,  that fits entirely into a backpack and can be carried all that time?  Through the years, we’ve gotten pretty good at light-weighting our wares and keeping good track of what we need and don’t need.

We each have lists, and for instruction, I took a photo of Diane’s two-paged, single-spaced,  list. Now, it seems like a LOT of stuff (and it is), but you may want to check out the yellow highlighted number at the bottom, right (you’ll need to zoom in). Two pages worth of clothing, etc., including the weight of the pack, comes in at just over 12 pounds!

Not too bad! And that’s for 6 plus weeks in Italy!

More to come as Wirewalker ventures into the Tuscan hills of Italy!

Bags are Packed, We’re Ready to Go

2019 Wirewalker L'Italiano

Some quick details:  We leave tomorrow,  8/6 for Florence,  spend 3 days there, then take the train to Lucca, Italy.  On Monday,  8/12, we start the walk to Rome, 250 miles and about 3 1/2 weeks of walking.  If you have really good eyesight, here’s a map of our journey:

All we have to do is connect the dots! Simple enough?!

Now, for the bags:  For this Camino we could not find a service to ship a suitcase to our final destination (Rome) and hold it until we get there. It’s more than just a nicety of fresh clothes at the end if the rainbow, it’s actually a necessity. Hiking poles are not allowed in carry on luggage and we do not want to put our backpacks into checked baggage. What to do?

We ended up buying a small suitcase at a Thrift store for $5 and put our poles in that.

We’ll check this bag, claim it in Italy, then donate it there. When we get ready to go home from Rome, we’ll buy a nice Italian bag there and use that as our checked bag (with poles). New Italian bag. CHECK. Poles shipped safely.  CHECK. All good!  Next post is from Italy!

Welcome to Italy; the Sophomore Stumble

2019 Wirewalker L'Italiano

Day 2 in Florence, Italy. No formal miles walked, though we ran 4 miles and walked several tourist miles, visiting the Ponte Vecchio, and the Uffizzi Museum (unbelievable Renaissance art! ). Tomorrow, we’ll visit more museums (statue of David, etc.). Saturday, we take the train to Lucca where, on Monday, we start our walk to Rome!

Sophomore stumble?  What’s that? While we were cruising on our sailboat, the stories of shipwrecks would be heard a few times a season. Invariably, it was NOT the rookie sailor (Freshmen), nor the seasoned sailors (Seniors). Rather, it’s the sophomore class that gets into trouble!  They’ve had some success under sail and become a bit too cocky (hubris?). These guys are the ones who don’t double check the charts, the weather, local knowledge, etc. The result is, unfortunately, an unexpected grounding or a very rough ride … that could have been avoided if they were just a bit more cautious.

So, what’s that got to do with us? Remember that 2 paged list that we proudly showed in an earlier post? We should have read it better!

We arrived last night with about 40 € in our pockets, which is enough to get us to our hotel where we could search out an ATM to increase our cash kitty. Since several of the more remote locations we will visit on our walk are cash-based, having a supply of Euros is critical.

One more background note: On these trips, we don’t take our full wallets/purse. We use a money belt, instead, for security. Into the money belt we load ONLY what we need: 2 credit cards, a medical card, driver’s license, ATM card, passports and cash.

So, this morning it was time to get cash. And then I remembered; I forgot to pack my ATM card! Crud! Oh well, Diane has hers, right? Nope! We both forgot!

No ATM, but we have credit cards, right? We can get cash that way, right? Sort of. We never set up the cards for cash withdrawal … A call to Visa tells us that, with your passport and credit card you can go to any bank and they’ll give you a cash advance.  Not in Italy! We visited several banks and the answer was a consistent, No!

The last resort was the infamous money exchange booths! For only a 370 € charge, they will gladly give you 300 € 🤑! For those keeping score, that’s an instantaneous 23% interest charge! Ouch! Here’s that hard earned cash (and infamous money belt) :

Now to avoid that charge next time, we requested a Pin from Visa. Unfortunately, they only give new Pin’s by mail to the home address … in 7 to 10 days! We ordered one, nonetheless. Our most kind friend, Barb Raffee, has agreed to check our mail for this … every day until it arrives. She is a saint!

And we, we’re the called-out, cocky Sophomores who have been taught a proper lesson in preparation! There are always lessons to learn 🙄.

Chao!

Florence Day 2; Connecting the 50 Year Old Dots

2019 Wirewalker L'Italiano

Day 2. No formal miles, but 4 more miles run and several more walked as tourists.

Today, was another tourist day. A visit to the Accademia is a must! Not only is it jam packed with art from all the great Renaissance artists, it also houses Michelangelo’s most famous statue, David. In this statue, we see King David (before he was king) contemplating his battle with Goliath. Here’s the statue and a better explanation:

And the background:

We also toured the Duomo cathedral, a truly impressive cathedral in the heart of Florence!

Now, to the 50 year old dots. In the late 60’s, there was a popular singer named, Donovan. He had a few hits, including “Mellow Yellow”, and “Hurdy Gurdy Man”. Now, for 50 years I’ve known the words to Hurdy Gurdy man,  (“then comes the Hurdy Gurdy man singing songs of love”), but didn’t have a CLUE what Hurdy Gurdy meant!

In the Accademia museum, there is a section on musical instruments. In it, I saw this:

Yes, that is a 350 year old Hurdy Gurdy! Who would know?  Now, I know. It only took 50 years!

Ciao!

Seeing Lucca; It’s a Small World

2019 Wirewalker L'Italiano

No official miles walked (we start tomorrow), but 5 miles running. So,  speaking of running, running really is a great way to get an overview of a town. The outer walls of Lucca are just over 2.5 miles in circumference. We ran two laps this morning providing an excellent overview of the city within. Here’s part of my Strava post, and one of the runners I saw there!

(By the way, she had an excellent run today! )

We tracked our tourist miles inside the city and we were surprised that we’d covered over 10 miles, between yesterday and today. Not a bad “day off”!

I only snapped one tourist photo, as I’d hit my limit in Florence. Lucca is a very beautiful town and deserved more photo space,  but …

Okay, it’s a small world … With frequency, we’ll stay in a rental flat that is a restored centuries-old structure. Sometimes, these restorations are palacial; opulent. Sometimes, they’re just old and cramped. Our accomodations in Lucca are quite nice, but they didn’t manage to get the bathroom right.

Apparently here in Europe, they sell shower boxes for the size- challenged!  These showers can be 24″x24″, and sometimes smaller! Really, you cannot turn around in these units! Our shower here was probably 27″x27″, big enough to turn around in, but … don’t drop the soap! You won’t see it until you step out.  Here’s Diane modeling the shower:

Continuing our Small World, we found our next car! It will fit in our garage (for sure), and maybe even our backpack.  It’s a Renault Twizy car:

It’s electric, for those who wish to reduce fossil fuel, and has room for two, but not side-by-side (not for the romantics, here).

Enough for today. Tomorrow we hit the trail!

Lucca to Altopascio; A Time For Every Purpose

2019 Wirewalker L'Italiano
  1. Our journey has begun. 12 miles of walking, with only 200′ of climbing. There were mountains to be seen, we just didn’t have to climb them!

For a first day out, the course was not especially demanding.  And an early start kept us out of the worst of today’s heat (96 F)

We were given a head’s up from friends who had done this walk (from Switzerland to Rome) that this stage out of Lucca was perhaps the most boring of the bunch; industrial, mostly on roads, and very flat. Their description was pretty accurate.

This morning, before the hike, I was reading in Ecclesiastes (5:19), that “God gives the bounty and our ability to enjoy it”. Its our job to get off the stick and actually enjoy what we’ve been given. We did our best to enjoy today’s journey, exactly as it was!

Some days will be flat and industrial, others mountainous, or vineyards, or forests, etc. There’s a time for every purpose (or topography) under heaven. For those keeping score, that’s from Ecclesiastes 3, but also from the 60’s rock group,  The Byrds, “Turn, Turn, Turn”. I think that Hurdy Gurdy from Florence has locked me in a 60’s music mode!  Maybe we’ll sight a disco ball and my thinking will advance to the 70’s. Perhaps not 🤔!

Enough for now, showers, laundry and foraging await!