Toulouse: Rose-Red City

The Canal du Midi cuts almost through the heart of Toulouse, the finest and liveliest city in south-west France. There can be no better approach to any city. (The Grand Union Canal does a similar thing in Birmingham - but somehow it's not quite the same!) Beforehand, when imagining Toulouse, I'd vaguely thought: Aerospace. Airbus. Shiny new industrial parks. And that was about it. Nothing had prepared me for bright sun on rose-red brick and cloistered convents ...

... and monasteries now art museums ...

... the 16th century Pont-Neuf spanning the broad Garonne river ...

... tiny parks and squares with their fountains and sculptures ...

... and bijou little shops and cafés in the narrow streets and alleyways ...

... the gargoyles ...

... the bustling Place du Capitole ...



... and the medieval wonder that is the Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse's crowning glory ...



... where a wedding had just taken place ...

There was also the Hôtel Dieu Saint-Jacques (a former pilgrim hostel and hospice) with its huge garden sculpture of a scallop shell, and the Church of Notre-Dame de la Daurade with its much-venerated Black Virgin, and the Cathedral of Saint-Etienne with its 13th century rose window and unique asymmetrical design ...

For the 1st time on the trip I stayed 2 nights - the 2nd one in an Ibis hotel. Bliss!

Canal Du Midi

Watery reflections ...

Shadow and shade under the plane trees ...

Canalside settlement ...

Messing about in boats ...

I've always had a secret desire to live on a houseboat ...



Cyclist on the towpath ...



Quintessence of Canal: blue sky, white bridge, green water. And the path leading on, urging, seducing you to turn the next corner ...

Revelling In The Rigole

In the morning I continued along a flat, agricultural plain between 2 chains of hills. Cows grazed placidly. Dogs ran out barking from small farms (if their tails were in the air, you knew they were friendly). I passed field upon field of sunflowers awaiting harvest, their ripe and blackened heads heads all bowing to the south (the French for sunflower is tournesol which literally means 'turned towards the sun'). Tractors ploughed fields where the maize crop had already been gathered in.

After 18 km of these pastoral scenes I reached the charming bastide town of Revel. It was built on the usual grid pattern - with a central, arcaded square and a market hall (housing the Tourist Office) in the middle of it. This market hall is spectacular. In fact it's the biggest of its kind in France. The tiled and belfried roof was supported by enormous, fissured oak beams and pillars. It originally dates from the 14th century but was rebuilt after a fire. A relaxing evening was spent in the local gîte municipale. One of the volunteer hospitaliers (he'd just got married and was about to go on his honeymoon) entertained us with a repertoire of Jacques Brel and Georges Moustaki. I couldn't help thinking he was the spitting image of a young Frank Zappa ... or possibly an incipient Salvador Dali?

Next day I followed a delightfully bendy path alongside the Rigole, a man-made watercourse which drains the Atlantic/Mediterranean watershed. It was designed by Pierre-Paul Riquet, who also constructed the Canal du Midi - one of the great engineering feats of the 17th century - into which the Rigole feeds. Just before the confluence of the 2 waterways stands Le Moulin de Naurouze:

An Englishman and his French wife had bought Le Moulin de Narouze 10 years ago and were gradually restoring the whole complex. They'd opened a pilgrim gîte in one part of it - and there I spent the night. I'd walked 30 km that day and was very tired. My feet were beginning to hurt more and more - especially in the afternoons - and I knew that my plantar fasciitis had returned with a vengeance. Next morning I made my way down to the Partage d'Eaux, where the Rigole runs into the Canal du Midi:

This whole area is fascinating if you like canal boats, canal basins, locks and such things. Which I do. So I really enjoyed the ensuing 2 days' walk by the Canal du Midi, in the plane trees' shade, as I headed towards Toulouse, La Ville Rose, 50 km away ...

Ultreia!

The Way exists but not the traveller on it. Ancient Buddhist dictum

For the pilgrim the road is home. Reaching your destination seems nearly inconsequential. Andrew Schelling

A few days ago I made a comment on Singing Bear's excellent blog Flying Down Zed Alley about certain sympathies between Buddhism and Christianity, particularly early Celtic Christianity. I write about Buddhism from time to time on this blog - but Christianity also attracts me (and repels me at the same time, but that's another story!); and, of course, the whole culture, history and 'holiness' of Christianity underpins the Camino I'm on.

With all this mind, I was intrigued to read just now this short paragraph in Nicholas Shrady's book Sacred Roads: Adventures from the Pilgrimage Trail: Had either the Buddha or Christ chosen a secluded, stationary life, there would be no footsteps to follow. As it was, they both exalted the peripatetic condition, and they both showed us a Path; that one leads to Nirvana, and the other to salvation and eternal life, are two very different spiritual prospects, but in both cases it is the pilgrim, the soul seeking enlightenment, who must set off on the journey. As the Buddha lay on his deathbed, he offered his followers a simple, if telling, imperative: 'Walk on!'

Ultreia! or Ultreya! is a word deriving from the ancient Galician language (and originally from the Latin word ultra) which is difficult to translate exactly, but means something like 'Walk further!', 'Walk higher!', 'Onward!' or 'Walk on!'. Camino pilgrims often come across this word scrawled graffiti-like in underpasses, on walls and alongside the ubiquitous yellow arrows which point the Way.

Ultra means 'further', 'extreme', 'radical', 'beyond the norm'. The true end of the Spanish Camino is Fistera, Finisterre, Finis Terra, The End of the Earth, the Furthest Point West in Spain. The romance and promise of the West pervades much folklore, mythology and many spiritual and quasi-spiritual beliefs (eg there's the story of the lost kingdom of Atlantis).

As I approached Toulouse by the Canal du Midi this September, a cyclist on the opposite bank called out to me 'Ultreia!' in recognition, greeting, encouragement and blessing, with one arm held high in the air, the fingers of her hand pointing skywards.

The Pilgrim, The Walker And The Tourist

A visitor passes through a place; the place passes through the pilgrim. CYNTHIA OZICK

Cynthia Ozick is right. Pilgrims are not tourists. They are not principally long-distance walkers either. Many pilgrims are keen walkers; but many, too, are ordinary people who have never done a long-distance walk in their lives, and probably never will again (though some will return year after year).

For the Saint James pilgrim the tangible, ostensible goal of the journey is Santiago de Compostela itself, to be sure. But even more important is the gradual realisation that the truest spiritual fulfilment lies in the pilgrimage itself, each and every day of it - each day with its own unique texture and flavour, its own weather and climate, its own hardships, its own highs and lows, its own route-finding problems, its own little joys and pleasures, its own micro-friendships.

A pilgrim may visit many ancient, numinous sites and shrines along the Way, but he or she absorbs the atmosphere and moves on. There is indeed a sense that the place passes through the pilgrim, certainly affecting, perhaps changing or transforming him or her in some subtle or even in some more striking and sudden manner. The pilgrim does not have a checklist of places to visit like a tourist on the tourist trail. He or she may arrive in a town or village too late to see much at all, and will only be interested in finding a bed for the night, and something to eat. And may leave early the next morning in the dark.

The photo is of Pilgrim Alex whom I met somewhere along the Canal du Midi in southern France. He had walked from Seville to Santiago, from Santiago to the Pyrenees, from the Pyrenees to Toulouse. From there he was making his way to Rome. And after Rome he would head for Jerusalem. He was sleeping rough as he could not afford to pay for accommodation.

In A Little Hilltop Village

In 1930 the Tarn burst its banks and flooded Moissac, destroying 617 houses and drowning 120 people. I left Moissac on 3 November and my morning's walk continued this watery theme. I followed the Canal de Garonne for 12 km. This canal runs from Bordeaux to Toulouse where it joins the Canal du Midi, thereby connecting the Atlantic Ocean with the Mediterranean Sea. (The complete stretch is known as the Canal des Deux Mers.) At one point I knew I passed the confluence of the Tarn and Garonne rivers. But it was quite misty and I couldn't make out anything very much except for the occasional lone cyclist or jogger who ghosted by. From the canalside village of Pommevic (there's a nuclear power station here but I didn't see it) I headed on a quiet country road across flat farmland towards the hilltop village of Auvillar.

Auvillar was the 1st of many bastide towns and villages I would either see distantly or visit throughout the rest of the département of Tarn-et-Garonne and in the next département of the Gers. Bastides were fortified settlements built in south-west France, in medieval Languedoc, Gascony and Aquitaine, during the 13th and 14th centuries. They were normally built to a grid pattern, and situated on hilltops for defensive reasons. The photo shows the beautifully restored medieval market hall in Auvillar's central square.

At Auvillar I encountered an artist painting, in the style of Van Gogh, a large and colourful mural for the local school. As was my custom I approached him for a chat. We talked about the big influx of English people to the area. "10% of the population of Auvillar is now English," he commented. I asked if that caused any problems (we often hear the French blaming incomers for the property price hikes affecting the whole of France). "Well, house prices have gone up, it's true," he said. "But there are many reasons for that. We have nothing against the English living here. As long as they mix in and join village society. However there are some English cliques which keep themselves to themselves and won't even attempt to learn French or take part in communal village life..."