On the Path to Our Camino

A path along the Chemin du Puy

Sev­eral of my most recent posts have dis­cussed my intent to walk a seg­ment of the Via Podi­en­sis. The Via Podi­en­sis (or le Chemin du Puy) refers to a net­work of trails that lead from cen­tral France toward the start­ing point for the Camino de San­ti­ago.

I’ve been very busy since that post, with work and what’s required to pre­pare for a 3‑week walk in France. A trek like this requires a lot of phys­i­cal and men­tal prepa­ra­tion, as well as logis­tics…

Sep­a­rately and together, Jane and I have got­ten a lot done in the past 6 weeks.

Progress Made

We’ve booked our flights, which in my case, required decid­ing where my jump­ing-off point would be, Seat­tle or Boston. Deci­sion: Boston. It short­ens the travel time, and cuts 33% of the time zone dif­fer­ence between our homes on the West Coast and cen­tral France. Mak­ing that deci­sion required nego­ti­at­ing fam­ily vaca­tion plans…

We’ve booked rooms in Toulouse, to recover from jet lag before tak­ing the train to Figeac, and pre­pare for our home­ward flights 21 days later.

Our itin­er­ary in France

We’ve planned the route, selected the cham­bres d’hôtes (tiny inns), cho­sen rooms (when pos­si­ble), and wired deposits to hold our reser­va­tions. If you want to stay in some­what more upscale lodg­ings than the dor­mi­to­ries pre­ferred by many pil­grims, there are often very few choices within easy walk­ing dis­tance of the chemin.

Now we’re cross­ing our fin­gers that hand­shake agree­ments with the hote­liers will be remem­bered when we arrive on their doorstep each night, hot, sweaty and exhausted…

Plan­ning the route was a labor of love on Jane’s part. Explor­ing options required a lot of con­ver­sa­tion, online and library research, and out­reach to for­mer pil­grims who’ve trav­eled this Way before. For­tu­nately, we now belong to sev­eral Face­book groups devoted to pil­grims focused on spe­cific treks along the Way. That makes it eas­ier to get our ques­tions answered, with mul­ti­ple view­points in some cases…

Because we both rel­ish la belle cui­sine française, opti­miz­ing where we’d be and when was an impor­tant fac­tor for us.

To devise the opti­mal route Jane jug­gled with mul­ti­ple fac­tors: aver­age daily dis­tance, dif­fi­culty of the ter­rain, access to mod­er­ately priced lodg­ings, avail­abil­ity of din­ners (at local restau­rants or pro­vided by the innkeep­ers), etc. Opti­miz­ing venues and week­days is an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion for rural France.

Arriv­ing (or not) on spe­cific week­days is a prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tion when vis­it­ing rural areas or vil­lages with lim­ited options or sites to visit. Plus, to avoid going hun­gry, pil­grims should avoid arriv­ing in a vil­lage on a day when all the bistros or restau­rants are closed! Unless they’re stay­ing in a place that offers a table d’hôte.

Nuanced travel plan­ning like this is one of Jane’s joys in life, sec­ond only to the joy she expe­ri­ences when mak­ing one of those jour­neys. I’m lucky she’s plan­ning this for both our sakes.

Next Post: updates on hik­ing boots and travel gear…