As I said in an earlier post I'm making plans to do another Camino walk this time from Le Puy en Valey starting the first of March 2010. I hope to be able to average 20KM per day which will give me lots of time to walk the Chemin de Saint Jacques from Le Puy to the foot of the Pyrenees at Saint Jean Pied de Port , by the middle of April. I would like to do lots of practice walking before I start on the Chemin, as a matter of fact I started last week. The problem that I always have is our bitter cold winter weather in January and February some times for weeks on end it is just too cold and windy to get any serious walking done, so I started thinking about going over to France and renting a GÎTES or apartment for all or part of February to give me some time to get in a few practice walks. The criteria that I set for my location was snow free, reasonable temperature, in a small town or city, good transportation links by both train and bus, reasonably priced accommodations, walking trails in the area and in a good location for day or overnight trips to other areas of interest. After doing some research I have settled on Beziers in the Languedoc-Roussillon region of southwest France. A small city of 69,000 very well served by both train and bus, you can take one of several TGV high speed trains daily leaving Paris Charles de Gaulle International Airport direct to Beziers in under 5 hours. Once in Beziers there is good train and bus connections to other locations of interest in the area. I'm planning to stay at an Apart-Hotel which rents studio and one bedroom apartments called Le Fonserane I have been quoted a rate of 210 Euro a week for a studio in February so I will make reservations for the whole month. They won't accept reservations for 2010 until November. Beziers is only a few kilometers from the Mediterranean and short distances from Carcassonne to the west and Montpellier to the east. The Canal du Midi goes through this part of France connecting the Atlantic and the Mediterranean and there are walking trails that follow the canal both east and west of Beziers I'm not sure but I think the trails are the tow path along the canal. I hope to make this a two or three day walk at some point during my stay.
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
Thursday, August 20, 2009
Planning my next big walk this time from Le Puy en Valey
Planning my next big walk this time from Le Puy en Valey in southern France, another Camino walk. Not sure yet if I will walk all the way to Santiago in western Spain a distance of 1521 KM or only as far as Saint Jean Pied de Port at the foot of the Pyrenees 736 KM. If I continue into Spain I plan to go up north and walk the Camino del Norte along the north coast, when I walked last time I walked the Camino Frances about 774 KM across Spain.
When my friend Pru came from Paris to spend the summer at her cottage in Lubec she brought me a copy of, Miam Miam Dodo Le Chemin de Saint Jacques de Compostelle La Voie du Puy. The widely considered best guide book for the Camino Le Puy-en-Valey to Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port along the GR 65(Grande Randonnée 65). It is easy to see where it gets it's reputation excellent maps and detailed information on each village and town that you pass through as well as contact information and rates for all of the accommodations along the chemin.
Right now my plans are to start walking the first week in March. Le Puy and the surrounding area is in the Haute-Loire region and the first week of walking is at altitude ranging from 640 meters at Le Puy to 1400 meters at L'Aubrac so there is the possibility of Snow in these areas but I'm not worried I have lots of time I will either wait out the storm in a village or take a bus or train down out of the mountains.