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Published: July 11th 2009
So we left Heidi in Bourg Argental and attacked a mountain called Tracol, that is, we had to climb from 750 m above sea to 1045 above sea. When we arrived there, there still was snow on the path, which I commented with the f-word. When Andrea arrived at the same place about half an hour later she commented the snow with the f-word. I guess we had had enough snow back in Switzerland... We spent the night in a place called Les Sétoux in a classic French gîte: narrow dormitories, bad food, strange owners but for a very fair price. However, as we were a good group of pilgrims (consisting of Andrea, Magaly, André, Wolfgang and me) we spent a very pleasant evening. There we also met Ingrid who, the next day started much faster than us but soon lost her way, and as we kind of brought her back to the right way she joined our little group for the next two weeks. She actually turned out into one of those persons I felt truly sorry to loose when she left us after those two weeks.
From Les Sétoux the Camino led us on to a place called Tence,
a charming little town with lots of old stone houses. We spent the night at a hotel which, another one, had strange rooms and bad food - but still, we had a good time, joking about a picture of a charming elderly lady.
The next day we planned to do only a short bit so that we would arrive in Le Puy in another 2 days but as we arrived in the village where we had reserved rooms it was only 11am and raining and our hosts had told us that we could have the rooms only at 4pm. So we decided to go on another 9km to St. Julien-Chapteuil which was hard work as we had to climb quite a bit in a path that, because of the rain, had transformed into a river but we arrived safe and not too wet in the gîte, this one very comfortable in the school of the village. We wanted to go for dinner in a restaurant and found one but as we were placed and looking at the menu Wolfgang refused so persistently to eat anything in this restaurant that we had to leave. We went to have pizza instead which
Wolfgang later taxed atrocious.
So we were only one day away from Le Puy, the first important place on the way to Santiago. Many pilgrims start their pilgrimage there and this route is therefore called Via Podiensis.
The bit that we had to cover was very beautiful in the beginning, leading us through a landscape with fairly bizarre hills, up to a hill which was called Montjoie, to reflect the Monte de Gozo before Santiago. From this hill downwards into the city the Camino turned quite awful. First it led along the motorway, then turned away from the city to a bridge over the river Loire just to lead back to the motorway. It moves again away from the motorway to pass along a side river of the Loire which was as clean as a stable for pigs. Finally you arrive in the city which is incredibly impressive. There are two mountains. On one they have built a statue of the virgin Mary with Child out of canons. We all thought the statue was fairly kitschy but it is still very impressive on that mountain. On the other mountain they have built a church as early as the 10th century
- and that church isn't kitschy at all but has a wonderful atmosphere and, of course a great panoramic view over Le Puy.
Just to mention the Cathedral and a Templars' Church with a lot of very interesting details.
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Erik Stettler
non-member comment
Sind bald unterwegs . . .
hoi Marco Morgen Sonntag, 12. Juli fahren Lola und ich Richtung Spanien. Wir werden am Sonntag in der Nähe von St. Emilion übernachten und sind am Montag oder Dienstag in unserer Ferienwohnung in Ramales de la Victoria. Dieses Dörfchen befindet sich zwischen Bilbao und Santander. Falls Du in der Nähe bist ruf doch an! + 41 79 207 3447 LG - Erik & Lola