Cahors the Devil and the Snow.

Cahors the Devil and the Snow., originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

The fortified Bridge at Cahors has a legend that goes with it something about the builder doing a deal with the devil :

"It took seven decades in the 1300s to build Valentré bridge. Legend has it that the builder made a pact with the devil to help in the completion of the bridge.

At the end of the work, the builder tried to go back on the pact by refusing to place the last stone onto the bridge. In the 1800s, during a restoration of the bridge, a carving of a devil was added to the top of one of the three towers. "

It was snowing lightly as we crossed the bridge but I managed to get a shot of the devil.



Today has been mostly cloudy and quite cold so we were supprised to come across Almond Trees in bloom. They are usually the earliest of the fruit or nut trees to bloom.



Yesterday we walked past the little roadside chapel of Saint Jean Le Froid the door was open so we went in for a look and I'm glad we did the windows were very special.





For some reason Pru took a few photos of some old Pilgrim.





A few video clips that I took today:

Pont Valentré. Cahors

Pont Valentré. Cahors, originally uploaded by Berni C..

I have great photos of this birdge that are my own but this computer won't let me upload them. Anyway we stayed at a little hotel in Cahors and when we got up yesterday morning it started to snow. Just enough to turn the ground white but it was cold and we had some concern about it making slopes slippery . The usual way out of Cahors is straight up a cliff face using steps that have been carved into the cliff. We chose to take a longer route out of town for safety sake which added a bit to the distance for the day.



As it turned out we opted for a short day, too cold and damp so we stopped at Hospitalet where we stayed at the Chambre et table d'hotes Les Tuileries very nice and comfortable and we had a good dinner and breakfast with the family.



Today we walked 20 KM on to Montcuq, for the non French speakers that translates to "My Ass", needless to say I had to buy postcards. We are staying in the Gite d'etape Le Souleillou which is nice and clean and comfortable and we are doing our own cooking for a change. Very interesting town with two old stone towers, we plan to do some looking around before we move on ion the morning.

Wonderful Chambre d'Hotes Atelier des Volets Bleus at Grealou

Wonderful Chambre d'Hotes Atelier des Volets Bleus at Grealou, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

Excuse the spelling, I'm using a french keyboard and no English spellcheck in this computer.

I just wanted to take a few minutes to give you a few brief highlights of the walk so far and for the benifit of my friends who are making plans to walk La Voiue du Puy this fall I will give some comments on the trail and our lodgings.

February 27, 2010: We stayed at the Abbaye Sainte Foy at Conques, which is an excellent facility very clean and modern even though it is in the 11th. century building. Good evening meal and good breakfast.

February 28, 2010 We started our walk from Conques to Decazeville a distance of 19.5 KM. A good first day of walking, mostly sunny with one brief shower in the afternoon. Tonight we stayed at a small hotel because the Gites in the area were not open for the season yet. Had an excellent meal at a little Chinese restaurant. This is where I had to take my extra walk to pick up my man Purse.



March 1,2010 Decazeville to Chaunac a distance of around 10 KM a short day because the next avaliable Gite would have made the walk over 30 KM, so many of the gites are not yet open for the season. We stayed at Gite Les Mont de Chaunac which wasn't really ready to open for the year but the lady let us stay. No hot water for showers in the evening but there was lots in the morning. We cooked our own evening meal in the kitchen and it was the best I've had so far , Pasta, broccollie in a creme fresh sauce with lots of smoked wild Pacific Salmon. Even had leftovers for breakfast.

March 2,2010 Chaunac to Figeac a distance of 20.5 KM. A beautiful day sunny and warm all day by 10 AM I had removed my jacket and was walking in a short sleeve t-shirt. We stopped mid-day at an Auberge-Bar-Restaurant and had a five course meal with wine for 12 Euros each. It was wonderful but I ate too much and could hardly move that afternoon. We stayed at Gite le Soleilho, to be avoided. The Gite was nice enough but the man is nuts. Evidently he had bed bug problems last year and is running the place like a concentration camp now. He had a long list of orders for us including garbage bags for us to put our backpacks in and not to remove them.

March 3,2010 Figeac to Grealou 20.5 KM and a fair amount of rain today but not too bad it was gentle without any wind. We stayed at the wonderful Chambre d'Hotes pictured at the top of this post. We had the whole house to ourselves and a Jotul wood stove to keep the house warm. we paid 10 Euros extra for food to cook for the evening meal and the lady left enough to feed a party. A wonderful old stone house a must stay place for any of you coming this way.

March 4,2010 Grealou to Cajarc another short day but we did stop for another wonderful lunch a bit more expensive and not quite as good but very nice all the same. We stayed at Chambre d'Hotes L'Atelier very nice, clean and comfortable. Neither one of us felt like a big dinner but we had a good breakfast with the family before we left in the morning.

March 5,2010 Cajarc to Limogne 18 KM and another beautiful sunny day. We stayed at the municipal Gite nothing special but clean and comfortable and only 10 Euros each.

March 6,2010 Limogne to Mas de Vert 21.5 KM and a lovely day. We are staying at Gite Poudally which is run by a very nice young couple and has a wonderful atmosphere, great food and laundry facilities. Need I say more.

Conques from the South

Conques from the South, originally uploaded by Sacred Destinations.

March 5th. much to tell . We have been walking six days now and covered a little over 100 KM . The whole saga begins with me leaving my "Man Purse" on a train at the last stop before Conques and I didn't realize it until a half hour later: A small station only one employee who call the train they find the bag and will return it to the station on a later train that evening. We take a taxi to Conques about a half hour away and the taxi is due to return to the little station in the morning to pick up passengers from the Paris train. Problem number two in the morning all trains from the north of France are cancelled due to the mqjor storm on the coast that killed 50 people. The nice people at SNCF,French Rail, agree to forward the bag to the next town on out walking route. Once we arrive there are no taxis available to take me the extra 4 KM to the station so I add an extra 8 KM round trip to pick up the bag. Everything still in the bag including my Passport and two cameras.

We are in Limogne tonight and this little cafe is going to close soon so I need to be brief. The photo of Conques is borrowed, I didn't have a camera at the time. I will add some photos here and if you click on them it will take you to the others that I have just put on Flickr.

Annie in Beziers

Annie in Beziers, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

My last day in Beziers was capped off with a coffee at La Comedie Cafe on Allées Paul Riquet with my flickr friend," Annie in Beziers". So nice to meet her and she was just as nice as I thought she would be. Annie is the first flickr friend that I have ever met other than family and friend that I already know outside of flickr. Great to meet you Annie keep taking those beautiful photos.

Well today was the day for doing all those last minute things and getting ready to leave Beziers in the morning. Up early and off to the laundry mat to wash and dry all the cloths that I later packed into two boxes and shipped off to Pru in Sevre, so I can pick them up on my way home in mid April.

After that was accomplished and I could stop thinking about it there was lots of time left for a last visit to the Friday flower market. It has been getting bigger every Friday since I arrived as the weather gets warmer and more people are starting to work in their gardens. Along with all of the beautiful cut flowers and potted plants there are now lots of seedlings for the vegetable and herb garden. Annie tells me that later on and through the summer the entire Allées is full from one end to the other.

Onions and lettuce seedlings:



Rosemary, Thyme, Basil and lots of other herbs.



Lavender, Chives and Thyme



Then of course there is the wonderful selection of things that I can only dream about being able to grow.

Olive tree but you would need to wait a few years for the olives.



Lemon tree only 35 Euros and it already has lemons on it.



This one has fascinated me ever since I arrived all the different varieties of grapes that are available and they are just little sticks covered in red wax. Today I was close by when the man took one out of the dirt and explained to a customer how deep to plant it and to cut about a third off the top of the cane. The cane had a small root system on it and they were only 3 Euros each and cheaper if you bought in quantity.

Grape vines in case you want to start your own vineyard.



I have really enjoyed my stay in Beziers and it will be fun to return again in a few years time for another visit. If any of you are thinking of a visit to this area Beziers is well located and in easy traveling distance to a lot of other very interesting towns and attractions, have a look at this site for more information and by the way some of my photos are on this site too. Midi Photo Bank.

Talk to you soon from Le Chemin de St. Jacques.

Montpellier February 25, 2010

Montpellier, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

For my last day trip out of Beziers I got up early this morning and took the train to Montpellier for the day. The weather was not as advertised very mild but heavy cloud all day the sun never did get out.

For those of you in Canada who have seen the Bonbardier commercial in TV where some tourist ask a lady to take their picture in a town square and a tram goes by and the woman takes a picture of it instead and says that my train it's made by Bombardier. Well I don't think this is the same square and I road these trams all day but couldn't find any indication of who made them but every-time I saw one I though of that commercial. They sure were efficient and frequent and an all day ticket was only 3.40 Euros.



I love aquariums and I think this is my fourth, two in Europe and two in North America and this one sure didn't disappoint. One video clip pretty much looks like the last video clip so I will only bore you with a couple of them.


and



Look who I found in Montpellier - Vive le Quebec libre. Remember him from Quebec City in 1967.




This man would have great job security in Beziers. Anyone want to guess what he does for a living.



Of course since there was a Jardin des Plantes (Botanical Garden) I had to go. This one is even about 50 years older then the one in Paris. A few things in bloom but not much this time of year. Actually this garden is a medicinal garden and isn't grown for its flowers commissioned by Henri IV in 1593.

Bamboo



Iris



Just before I left I came across this most unusual apartment building, I would love to live in it if they could convince me that it won't fall over. Looks kind of top heavy to me.



As usual there are additional photos on my flickr account and clicking on any of these pictures will take you there if you want to see them.

The quintessential Beziers View

The quintessential Beziers View, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

This is the most famous view of Beziers you see it on all of the tourist information and post cards etc. The weather here the past couple of days has been wonderful a brief shower this morning but other than that it has been sunny and nice and warm. I've been running around with no jacket just a long sleeve t-shirt and have been very comfortable.

Just finalized my plans for leaving Beziers this morning. I will catch a train at 0936 Saturday morning headed to St Christophe after a couple of train transfers I should arrive there 2:45and from there a taxi to Conques as there isn't a train station in Conques. Pru is coming down from Paris to walk with me for the first couple of weeks and we will meet in St Christophe her train gets in a little after mine. That is of course if all of the trains are running on time so far I haven't had much luck that way most of the trains that I have taken have been late from anything to 10 minutes to almost two hours.

My usual warning here I'm not sure how often I will be able to Blog while I'm walking I'm sure I will need to be in a fairly large town to find an internet cafe, but I will post something whenever I have the chance.

A couple of more photos of Beziers this is looking down my street rue des Docteurs Bourguet the door to my apartment building is on the left just ahead of where these people are walking:



Ever since I arrived almost a month ago the Beziers Town Hall has had the Haitian Flag at half mast, in the plaza out in front of the building:






Check-out the Conques tourism website (Click the red text)some great video and slide shows of the town and you can even select the language of your choice.

A footnote: I've made a change in my plans for tomorrow Thursday 25 February. The weather is so nice I decided to take the train to Montpellier for the day. So hopefully I will have a blog update tomorrow night. Montpellier is only 45 minutes away by train and it is the regional capital have a look at their website.

Talk to you soon from Le Chemin.

Par la mer chez Sete

Isn't that lovely - Sete, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

Up early Sunday morning to catch the 0900 train to Sete for the day I arrived at the station to buy my ticket around 0830 and for the first time ever I used the machines where you buy your ticket with out the help of an agent even forgot to change the language to English and managed to get my tickets to Sete and return. Caught an earlier TGV and was in Sete before 0900. Took this short video clip to give you an idea of how fast the TGV moves but on this short run I doubt if they got it up to full speed.



It was cool windy and gray in Sete when I arrived with the sun peaking out every so often. It is about a thirty minute walk from the train station to the sea shore side of Sete on my way I passed by two men harvesting mussels, you have to look closely to see the second man he is in the water in a wet suit.



The beach at Sete is perfect sand with lots of seashells and goes for kilometers in the distance, you can see another town a long way off and high snow covered mountains a long way behind the town. Unfortunately not possible to capture on my little camera. This photo is looking back at Sete.



After I had eaten my picnic lunch down by the sea two men arrived and started doing Kite Surfing at least that's what I called it for lack of a better name, it sure looked like fun. They have trapeze type bars that the hold onto to maneuver the kite but it is also fastened to them by a harness so they don't loose it, I assume there is some sort of emergence release too. They put on quite a show and really looked like they were having a great time.



I just happened to be ready with my flip camcorder at the right moment to get this little clip when one of them came really close in to shore.



Bernie looking just a bit scared that I might leave his by the sea. Don't leave me I'm scared of the water.



On my way back to the train station I took this photo of the lovely harbour on the Etang side of Sete very much calmer on this side and wouldn't you know it the sun came out and it was beautiful when it was time to leave.



Though you might like to see Beziers at night this is a photo of the Theater looking down the Allees Paul Riquet . There are a few more night photos and some more pictures of Sete on my flickr site you can get there by clicking on any of these photos.



Well this is my last few days in Beziers making plans, along with Pru , to move on at the end of the week to start Le Voie du Puy. We have been advised not to start from Le Puy even though you can't see any snow on the live Le Puy web-cam reports are that the trails are snow covered an impassable. Right now it looks like we will start at Conques which is at the 207.5 kilometer point out of Le Puy en Velay, of the 740 kilometer GR65 trail to Saint-Jean-Pied-De-Port, but what is more important is that Conques is down off the L'Aubrac high plateau and hopefully snow free. There are areas on the high plateau which reach 1300 meters and Conques is at 280 meters. My plans are to walk to Saint -Jean-Pies-De-Port and then go back in April to walk from Le Puy to Conques when the snow will hopefully be just a bad memory.

Ultrea !!! Buen Camino !!! Bon Chemin !!

I broke down and bought it today

I broke down and bought it today, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

It was 90 € in the window but the man accepted my offer of 80€ which always makes me wonder how low they would go.

It is very small oil painted on wood, I love it and it will make a nice souvenir of my trip.

Planning to take the train back to Sete for the day tomorrow, supposed to be mostly sunny so it should be nice by the sea, a picnic lunch on that beach that I photographed earlier.

Memorial to Jean Moulin the resistance fighter

Memorial to Jean Moulin the resistance fighter, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.

It seemed to be a day for discovering memorials of the atrocities of World War II .

Copied from the internet:

Jean Moulin, the son of a professor of history, was born in Beziers, France, on 20th June 1899. He was conscripted into the French Army in 1918 but the First World War came to an end before he had the opportunity to see action.

After the war Moulin joined the civil service and rose rapidly to become the country's youngest prefect. Influenced by his friend, Pierre Cot, a radical pacifist, Moulin developed left-wing views. During the Spanish Civil War Moulin helped to smuggle a French aircraft to the Republican Army fighting against the Royalists.

Moulin refused to cooperate with the German Army when they occupied France in June 1940. He was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo and while in his cell he attempted to commit suicide by cutting his throat with a piece of broken glass. After recovering he was released from prison.

In November 1940, the Vichy government ordered all prefects to dismiss left-wing mayors of towns and villages that had been elected to office. When Moulin refused to do this he was himself removed from office.

Over the next few months Moulin began to make contact with other French people who wanted to overthrow the Vichy government and to drive the German Army out of France. This included Henry Frenay, who had established Combat, the most important of all the early French Resistance groups. He also had discussions with Pierre Villon who was attempting to organize the communist resistance group in France. Later, Moulin was accused of being a communist but there is no evidence that he ever joined the party.

Moulin visited London in September, 1941 where he met Charles De Gaulle, Andre Dewavrin and other French leaders in exile. In October 1941, Moulin produced a report entitled The Activities, Plans and Requirements of the Groups formed in France. De Gaulle was impressed with Moulin knowledge of the situation and decided he should become the leader of the resistance in France.

Moulin was parachuted back into France on 1st January, 1942. Moulin brought with him a large sum of money to help set up the underground press. This included working with figures such as Georges Bidault and Albert Camus who had both been involved in establishing the Combat newspaper.

Moulin's main task was to try and unite all the different resistance groups working in France. Over the following weeks he arranged meetings with people such as Henry Frenay (Combat), Emmanuel d'Astier (Liberation), Jean-Pierre Lévy (Francs-Tireur), Pierre Villon (Front National), Pierre Brossolette (Comité d'Action Socialiste) and Charles Delestraint (Armée Secrete). After much discussion Moulin persuaded the eight major resistance groups to form the Conseil National de la Resistance (CNR) and the first joint meeting under Moulin's chairmanship took place in Paris on 27th May 1943.

On 7th June 1943, René Hardy, an important member of the resistance in France, was arrested and tortured by Klaus Barbie and the Gestapo. They eventually obtained enough information to arrest Moulin at Caluire on 21st June. Jean Moulin died while being tortured on 8th July 1943.

Below the monument is this little cage containing an urn of the soil from where he was murdered.



Earlier I had walked by the Theater and noticed this plaque on one corner.



The word Biterrois is what the people from Beziers call themselves. Like if you are from Toronto you are a Torontonian. On the last day of World War II the Nazies murdered ten people from Beziers at this place.

In between visits to monuments I attended all three of Beziers Friday Markets The Flower Market, The Food Market and the everything else Market. Here are a few of the pictures there are more on my flickr account just click on any of the photos and it will take you to them.

In the everything else category:



Still with the everything else category:



Lots of livestock:







And of course the good stuff:





Had lots of fun just looking around but of course I had to make some purchases.