Viewpoint

Sign on the French GR 65.

What's going on here, then? Has a zealous and literal-minded bureaucrat been working overtime in the French Footpaths Department? Or could this be an artwork by David Shrigley? Or perhaps it's an unconscious piece of postmodernism influenced by semiotic theory? Or is it just a statement of the bleedin' obvious? I suppose in the end it all depends on your point of view . . .

(Click here for the daily Turnstone quote.)

The End Of The Trail

Limogne marked the end of my trek, my two-week, 300 kilometre journey south-west from Le Puy through some of France's most stunning scenery. I'd walked almost half-way to the Spanish border. Before catching the bus to the railway station in Cahors, I wandered up into the woods above Limogne in search of this dolmen. It seemed the right thing to do. I'm not sure why.  

Dolmens are burial sites of immense antiquity. Most are five to six thousand years old, though some are much older. You can find them in Europe, Asia, India and the Middle East. Interestingly, Korea has the largest concentration of dolmens in the world, probably accounting for 40% of the world's total. 

These structures — which consist of several upright stones supporting a flat, horizontal capstone — were usually covered with earth and smaller stones, but in most cases this outer covering has worn away, leaving only the 'skeleton' of the tomb behind.

Here are my backpack and walking poles at the end of the trail. I left them resting against this tree as I examined the dolmen and pondered on time and space and distance, and on how my life had brought me here to this remote spot in rural France, and on love, and the pain and the ecstasy of love, and death, and other weighty matters. Then I took a few photos, shouldered my pack, grasped my walking poles, and set off back down the path to Limogne in the dappled sunlight.  

(Dolmen: circa 3500 BC. Backpack and walking poles: circa AD 2010.)

Gréalou To Limogne

Pond between Gréalou and Cajarc.

The small town of Cajarc huddles by the river Lot in a bowl of chalk cliffs.  This is Cajarc's attractive Tourist Information Office — situated in a converted former chapel.

A canalised section of the river Lot.

The village of Gaillac on the other side of the river.

The path becomes stonier and stonier.

Coquilles Saint-Jacques.

Between Cajarc and Limogne.

Lot

In Livinhac I crossed the river Lot, where I spent a happy time watching some huge frogs and listening to their loud, unearthly, grunting noises. Shortly after Livinhac I passed from the department of Aveyron into the department of Lot itself. This lovely scene is somewhere between Livinhac and Figeac...

On the way to Figeac.

The village of Faycelles, which lies just beyond Figeac, is a perfect gem. Most of its houses seem to have been renovated or restored. However, the lady who owned its bar-restaurant, La Forge, told me that the village was not what it used to be: it was harder and harder to make a living, and many shops and little businesses — such as the butcher's and other bars — had ceased trading.

It was lunchtime, and the sun was beating down, so I had a beer, and relaxed, and enjoyed the medley of 60s pop music pulsating from the bar. Unfortunately I became so relaxed that it was quite hard to start walking again...  

Faycelles.

But I had to carry on, as I'd booked a place in a chambre d'hôte called L'Atelier des Volets Bleus in Gréalou — which was still twelve and a half kilometres away. I stopped briefly to admire this superb view over the Lot valley...  

View over the valley of the Lot.

Two pilgrims with headscarves enjoy a picnic lunch. (You can see my walking poles resting against the base of the stone cross.)

A barn typical of the Lot.

Soon the trees closed in, and I walked for many kilometres through dense, deciduous woodland, along paths bordered by mossed, tumble-down stone walls...

Dense, deciduous woodland...

Mossed, tumble-down stone walls...

More of the same...

You come across a number of these small, round, drystone huts in the area. They are former shelters for shepherds, known as caselles...

A caselle or shepherd's hut.

Sainte-Brigitte

Oh the sisters of mercy, they are not departed or gone / They were waiting for me when I thought that I just can't go on. LEONARD COHEN The Sisters Of Mercy

Janosch and Árpád.

Opposite the Église Saint-Roch in the village of Saint-Roch, a few sweaty uphill kilometres beyond Decazeville, you will find a pretty little gîte called Sentinelle. The Chemin de Saint-Jacques brought me here late in the afternoon of Tuesday 15 May. Two Hungarian pilgrims, Janosch and Árpád, had already stashed their backpacks behind the door. We chatted and joked and swapped stories, and I decided to spend the night there rather than carry on to Livinhac as I'd originally planned. Brigitte, the feisty hospitalière, one-time nurse and fervent Catholic, breezed in. She bid us take off our boots. She showed us the shower, the toilet, the small bedroom crammed with mattresses. She said she would cook a meal for us later, but first there was church.

Other pilgrims arrive, and the dynamic Brigitte busies herself massaging sore limbs and cutting up cauliflower and trying to remember our names. Then a ragged bunch of us cross the road to have our créanciales stamped and to celebrate Mass. The priest is old and shaky and apparently the survivor of two recent heart attacks. Brigitte helps him find his glasses and the right place in the Order of Service. She is his aid and supporter. The choir sings the Kyrie, the Sanctus, the Agnus Dei. The choir — well, I mean the choir of Brigitte: she's on her own, toute seule, with her sweet, quavering, descant voice, battling the sins of the world like a female Saint George, her eyes piercing yet other-worldly. Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy... We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth... Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world: grant us peace... She believes; she has no doubts. Slim and petite, she is strong and invincible with faith. She is the backbone of the gîte, the church, of the tiny settlement of Saint-Roch. 

And she is kind. And attentive. And interested in all these crazy pilgrims with their crazy stories about China and India and South America. And she serves delicious food tasting of her own garden: vegetable soup, and quiche, and carrots, and cauliflower, and potatoes — all subtly flavoured and spiced — and chocolate tart. And wine, though not a lot. And when other pilgrims roll in, tired and hungry, they are fed and watered; and somehow she produces another mattress from out of nowhere, or finds a sofa for them, or a comfortable corner of the floor.

And when we leave the next morning, after coffee and bread and home-made jam, she wishes us Bonne Route and kisses us and waves till we are out of sight, and the priest waves too from the window of his house by the church, though I'm not sure he can see us very well, as Brigitte is not there to find his spectacles.

I doubt if any of us will ever forget Brigitte...

(You can read more about Brigitte here.)

Birds, Beasts And Flowers

I hardly came across any mammals on the Chemin except for the domestic kind, but wild flowers, birds and insects were abundant. Although many of the species I saw were familiar to me from the UK, there seemed to be a much greater diversity and distribution here in south-west France.

Birds of prey included buzzard, kite, kestrel, sparrow hawk and possibly an eagle. And the call of the cuckoo was the musical backdrop to the whole fortnight. Some more unusual birds I spotted were redstarts and shrikes — redstarts are only locally common in Britain, and shrikes very rare indeed. (Shrikes are also known as 'butcher birds' because of their habit of catching insects and small vertebrates, then impaling their bodies on thorns.)

Shrike.

The 'chirping' of crickets could be heard most days. This loud, rasping wall of sound is produced by the males when they rub one wing against the other to attract the females, a behaviour which is called 'stridulation'. I'm pretty certain they were crickets, and even saw one basking on a wall near Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole. However, checking the natural history websites, it seems crickets tend to 'stridulate' at night rather than in the daytime. What's going on here?

Cricket.

Buttercup, dandelion, ragged-robin, cuckoo flower, wild daffodil, white narcissus, bugle, spurge, tormentil, wood anemone, cowslip, wild strawberry, dog rose, stitchwort, campion, scabious, poppy, St John's wort, speedwell, yellow archangel, lungwort, vetch, clover, marsh marigold, violet, wild pansy, herb robert, oxeye daisy, peony, butterbur, honesty, selfheal, comfrey, broom, bird's-foot-trefoil, scarlet pimpernel, cow parsley...

... were just some of the flowers I found growing along the path. Lungwort (pulmonaria) is unbelievably common, whereas in England this tends to be mainly a garden flower. (Lungwort is so called because its spotted leaves were thought to resemble diseased lungs, and it was therefore used to treat pulmonary infections in the days of sympathetic magic. You can find a post I wrote on sympathetic magic here.) I also saw several different types of orchid, including the rare bee orchid, and later identified with delight herb Paris and pasque flower — both firsts for me.

Lungwort.

Pasque flower.

Herb Paris.

Bee orchid.

(All images from Wikimedia Commons)

Beyond Conques

It's a steep climb out of Conques the next day. Half-way up the side of the valley you reach the tiny Chapelle Sainte-Foy. I suspect that every pilgrim and walker from time immemorial has stopped here for a rest...

Finally the ridge is in sight...

The view back is tremendous...

At the top you have a choice between two routes. Since the main route was 5 km longer, and involved a lot more 'ups and downs', I took a variante, an alternative route, which passed the Chapelle Saint-Roch just beyond Noailhac...

Saint-Roch was present outside...

... and inside...

There were also some stunning modern stained glass windows...

I rolled on along the ridge towards Decazeville...

A Personal Portrait Of Conques

Conques is a wonderfully preserved medieval town — well, it's not much larger than a village really. It's a kind of architectural fly in amber, and the whole place is classified as an historic monument. There are crowds of visitors in the summer, who walk in from the car park on the edge of town, as motor vehicles are banned from the streets. Luckily the tourists all seem to disappear by late afternoon.

What's allowed and what's not allowed is strictly controlled in Conques: shops are as rare as gold dust, and street signage is so minimal that I didn't see a single balise. Consequently I nearly got lost when leaving! It's beautiful, and it's perfect — almost too perfect for me, I have to say. At times Conques can resemble a film set, or a mock medieval town without the heart and soul of a real town, without the rough and tumble, the dirt, the dung and the swearing.

Nevertheless, I enjoyed my night here, because I stayed with the monks at the Abbaye Sainte-Foy, and the reception was warm and efficient, and the dormitory comfortable, and all the facilities  — showers, wash basins, washing lines — impeccable. (Though, fortunately, I had dinner that night in a restaurant — I heard later that the refectory food was tolerable but unexciting, and small of portion. Certainly the breakfast next morning was disappointing but, hey, who's complaining? The whole experience only cost a few euros, and was remarkable value for money — and I know I'm being mean-spirited, and probably unchristian, so do forgive me.)          

Stone sarcophagi behind the abbey-church of Sainte-Foy.

Entrance to the pilgrim accommodation at the Abbaye Sainte-Foy.

Abbey on the left, church on the right.

Front view of the abbey-church of Sainte-Foy.

An extraordinary Romanesque tympanum above the church's west doorway. The scene depicts the Last Judgement.

This photo makes the cobbled square in front of the abbey-church seem a little creepy. No people? Not even any pilgrims! Well, it was very early in the morning.

Massip To Conques

Flower pot pilgrims.

Espeyrac.

Espeyrac.

Le château de Sénergues.

Le tour carré du château de Sénergues.

An old house in Sénergues.

The church of St Martin, Sénergues.

Descending to Conques in the valley of the river Dourdou.

Entering Conques.