A New Resource for the Via Podiensis

It has been nearly four months since I last posted here. The relative nature of time certainly has been reinforced during the pandemic, but this fall has been little more than a blur. While Zoom school brought its own distinct set of challenges, the return to in-person learning has been even more complicated. It’s just familiar enough to “normal” to be deceiving. We’ve all lost a fair amount over these past two years–academic skills, content knowledge, social skills, maturity–and we’re finding our way back in fits and starts.

Despite all of that, I’m pleased to note that the new guidebook — Trekking the Camino de Santiago – Via Podiensis: Le Puy to the Pyrenees on the GR65 — is on track. (That title is a mouthful, but not much we could do about that; “Camino” has brand recognition “Chemin” lacks, and with a handful of different names associated with the Via Podiensis, we needed to find ways to cram them all in.) We had an aggressive publication pace, as I finished the re-walk at the beginning of August and needed to submit the manuscript (text, pics, gps/maps) by the end of September. Then, the folks at Cicerone needed to work their magic equally swiftly, in order to get the manuscript out to the copy editor by the end of November. And after that, our editor kicked into gear, not letting a week-long power outage stop her from turning the manuscript around in time for me to get the edits back for review over the upcoming holiday. The pandemic-related delays across the publishing industry may still have an impact on our intended June publication date–I imagine I’ll know about this in a few months–but we’ve controlled what we could control.

In the meantime, I’m pleased to share a resource that I think will be a significant tool for Le Puy pilgrims as they plan and walk their pilgrimage. It’s a near-comprehensive spreadsheet, laying out all pilgrim-focused or pilgrim-adjacent accommodations on the Via Podiensis, including the Célé Valley and Rocamadour variants, as well as the two connecting routes to the Camino del Norte, the GR10 and Voie Nive Bidassoa. At the bottom of the sheet, you can also click over from the “Accommodations” tab to the “Services” tab, where I’m compiling bakeries, groceries, cafés, gear shops, and tourism offices along the way. There’s still a lot to fill in on this sheet, particularly with regards to opening hours in 2022, but that will trickle in over the next few months.

The downsides of a print book are that a) you can’t be comprehensive, as there’s a strict word count (or else people complain about the size and weight of the book!), and b) the specifics related to services along the way (prices, opening hours) tend to change the moment the book goes to print. It’s an endless struggle to keep that all perfectly up-to-date. There are no such limitations in an online spreadsheet, though! My hope is to keep refreshing this regularly. In support of that, feedback is most welcome. Please, any time you find inaccurate or incomplete information, drop me a line. I’m using this form to gather feedback in a single, consistent location