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| me in front of Le Puy- en- Velay |
Eh bien dear friend, where are you now?
I have crossed several regions, through Burgundy, the region Bourbonnais, and now I'm in the Auvergne, in another important pilgrimage hub / tourist paradise, some 400 km south of Vézelay. I have followed quite a long distance right besides the course of the Loire river, occasionally I slept in a cottage, at the priest`s house, occasionally in a hotel, not too often because these guys are outrageously expensive.
Vézelay / Basilique St. Madelaine: in the XIIth century along with Rome, Jerusalem and Santiago one of the four most important pilgrimage sites in the Christian world. The starting point of two crusades, the 2nd and the 3rd. The 3rd Crusade led by Richard `au Coeur de Lion` (Richard the Lionheart, you know, that guy from the story of Robin Hood!)
crossing Voie de Vezelay- Le Puy
Is it nice there with the French, are they a bit "accueillant"[hospitable]?.
Well they are a bit weird though. For example after all day hiking I arrive in a tourist paradise. It is already dark and I nock on the door of such an `auberge'. Madame refuses to open even when I make a lot of noise while knocking on the door [is she afraid of me??]. I am so exhausted of the hike that I sit at a table outside. She eventually opens the door asks me what I am doing, why I am here. I explain the situation, she refers me to another Gite further on in the forest [which I already checked out]. Her hostal is full, I ask if I can sleep on the floor in the restaurant [impossible]. I ask if I can camp besides her house [impossible] but at the end she drives me to a dutch-run mini camping where I get a cabin [it was pretty cold outside] where I can stay. You have to give those people some time people to process the view of such a pretty man like me :).
Well, France is a great country, a pity that the French live there, haha. By the way have you met any other peregrinos yet?
Yeah! Two Walloons [from the French part of Belgium] a guy of twenty one years old and a girl of nineteen who had started in Belgium.
They are French-speaking what is sometimes difficult but good for my French knowledge!. What I find special about them is that they are different from all these sheep that `do` a Greek island and are all day on the beach with their lazy asses ...
sun flowers
I am today the tourist: I toil through the city, climb something beautiful like the church above, sit at a terrace, meanwhile musing while enjoying a good camembert and a burgundy on the wretches who now have to work and to raise slash educate children :) (that is also what we should thank the French for: their cheeses and their wine!).
(At first I thought it was a structure to communicate with E.T. When I hiked closer it proved to be a communication tower of the French Air Force barely guarded. Send three suicide peregrinos with stinger missiles in their backpack instead of a sleeping bag and the French army is defenseless! ).
If all goes well you're now under Le Puy en Velay hiking the 'Via Podensis' (= the road of St. James from Le Puy to Santiago de Compostela). You will probably meet more peregrinos now. Is that correct? And if so is that ok or does it suck?. What type of people do you meet?. Are they just as crazy as you are?.
More people, that's right, yes. It actually began in Le Puy, whole groupes of peregrinos who wander through the city. Was the way to Le Puy very solitary now there are groups. They are actually not true pilgrims but more day trippers, who hike for a week to 10 days. I hike between them somewhat with mixed feelings: on one hand it is nice (you get very easy to talk to each other), on the other hand it can also be annoying. I spoke to a Frenchman who had about my age. He was a stone mason / stone worker, someone who works in Cathedrals, just like those old cathedral builders of the Middle Ages!.
... all roads lead to Santiago (a map of ca. 1670)
In the beginning it was nice to talk to him. We were talking about old structures, the book 'The cathedral' (really a very good book in my opinion. I've only forgotten the name of the British writer Steven Fawcett maybe?, Pff, je ne sais pas [I don`t know].
The old Ottoman bridge in Dubrovnik that was destroyed by the Cetnics (Serbs) and is completely restored again according to techniques that were also used by the Ottoman builders.... But after a while I got the feeling I had opened some box of Pandora because the guy just kept on talking plus very fast in French and loads of talking.
I tried to follow what he was saying. In the beginning I kept up with him but after a while I was completely mentally Kaputt! [destroyed]. I tried to make him clear in a subtile way that I have had it with him and that he had to go on alone. I was quite angry about it afterwards. In a conversation it is giving and taking. Just keep on going to have some kind of a monologue is just not social!. It's okay to tell something but I think you need to listen also and show some interest in the other person.
Soooo...... to answer the first part of your question: mixed feelings!.
Col de loge
Type of people? Well, mainly Bourgueois so good citizens and country men. People that book a place in the Gite [Pilgrimshostel] ahead scared to death for unpleasant surprises. If you look at the age it's all above average: fifty and above. Yesterday I was sitting with grandpa (seventy nine years!) at the table respect for the dude n'est-ce pas?.
There are also many who call a transport company to let their backpack transported to the next village. I despite such practices and I find it actually cheating. Il faut suffrir, mais oui! [One has to suffer, yes sir!].
Sans suffrir il n'y a pas de gloire! (No glory without suffering). Crazy like me?. Well there's only one pilgrim hero and that`s me :). Nja, they all walk for about fifteen to twenty kilometers while I easily hike throughout the whole day. That is perhaps the main difference between me and the rest but for the rest: "le chemin est pour tout le monde!". (The road of St. James belongs to everybody).
Milestone, aaaahhhh Oui!!
We must therefore look out for the French. How is your French knowledge anyway? Can you make them clear that your cherish warm feelings for them/ you find them amazing sympathic?
I am improving my French more and more. I am here after all more then a month and the people here don`t speak something else but French. Also from those two Walloons with whom I occasionally hike I learn a lot: they are patient and teach me many words. I try as much as possible to read newspapers, and I have here the opportunity to practice. I can now better follow conversations, though constructing grammatically correct sentences is difficult. I notice that my vocabulary is improving, nice right?.
Apres Le Puy
GOOD man!. How many kilometers have you done until now?. How many kilometers more to go?.
Now I'm at 1500 km. To Santiago is also about 1500 km. If you look at the distance to Santiago you could say that I have done exactly half of the total distance. If you look at my entire "conge" [sabbatical] it is still a fraction of what I eventually will walk insj- allah!. But physically I still feel 100 %.
... the 88 temple route, `Marius, dites-moi, c'était beau là-bas?` [tell me Marius, was it good over there?]
Santiago- peregrino, bois (XIe siècle)
Pff, I have to quit now [writing, not the hiking]. Keep on leaving comments, that shows me I am not forgotten!
Vale papi, hasta la proxima!.
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