Connecting the GR-65 and the Camino del Norte
I still remember the first time I walked the GR-10. I had just finished walking the GR-65 from Le Puy-en-Velay, so I turned right in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port brimming with confidence that I’d make short work of these ~100km. How hard could it be? Three days, max. Well, I got my butt well and truly kicked. Just […]
Finishing the Via Podiensis
I wasn’t thrilled when my hosts in the Saint-Palais albergue informed me that breakfast began at 7am. It’s Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port day! I wanted to be there as early as I could. For a little while, I considered rolling out at 6, without breakfast. I would have been fine; I had supplies and there were a couple […]
Back in Basque
And just like that, I was back in Basque Country. Technically, the transition occurred yesterday, or maybe even the tail-end of the day before, but today its dominance became undeniable. I can’t fully explain why a white building with red shutters makes my heart skip a beat—maybe it’s just that it triggers nostalgia of the […]
The Longest and the Hottest
This actually ended up being the longest day of the trip. It was also the hottest day (and quite humid to boot), by a considerable margin. The vast majority of it was spent on pavement, which was a lovely pairing with the temperature. And, while I’m grateful to have tracked down viable new shoes in […]
The Corningest Corn That Ever Corned
Draft 1: The corn from corn to corn corned significant corn. The corned corn was a corning corn corn of a corn. And when I corn, let me corn you, the corn corned deep and the corn corned wide and the whole cornstorm and clustercorn was a corning cob. Draft 2: Once again, overcast skies […]
Deep Into the Denouement
It’s a dangerous game, labeling a certain portion of a pilgrimage road as less appealing than others. Every time someone complains about the meseta on the Camino Francés, contrary takes come pouring in, with people reveling over the subtle beauty they admired in that section. When pilgrims from Le Puy talk smack about Décazeville, I’m […]
Hiding in Plain Sight
If yesterday I marveled at the difference between three and six years’ memory, this evening I grapple with the erosion accomplished by six-to-twelve hours. I can tell you that the clouds rolled in overnight, blessing the morning with hours of cool before the sun—finally coming into the heights of its power this week—reasserted itself. I […]
Cats, Condom, and the Smallest Fortified Village in France
What is the half-life of memory? At what point does a mostly-accurate recalling morph into more fiction than fact, something merely “inspired by a true story”? A shift occurred today, as my memories became far more diluted, the water far out-pacing the dollop of sirop de menthe at the bottom of the glass. Whereas I […]
Stone Fruits and Gothic Churches
Today was part two of my longest two-day stretch in France this summer. It’s a funny thing, but I’ve come to find the longest days to be some of the easiest to manage. Shorter days carry all kinds of expectations. Maybe I’m hoping to arrive early—to rest, or to have time to see some things […]
Seeing Old Friends from Montcuq to Moissac
So much of my attention in the planning stage of this walk had been devoted to untangling the Figeac-Cahors multi-route know that I hadn’t actually considered what all of that walking in circles would feel like. On a day-by-day level, I enjoyed it; the walking was lovely more often than not and some of the […]