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.

Poles Together

A word about my walking poles. The one in my right hand is Iago - named after St James, the patron saint of Spain, the saint of Santiago de Compostela, where all the Caminos lead. The one in my left is Thérèse - named after St Thérèse of Lisieux and St Teresa of Avila. (The name also gives a nod to Mother Theresa and recalls, too, Fernando and Tere, the sweet brother and sister couple I met in Pamplona on my first Camino, and continued to bump into all the way to Belorado.)

Iago I bought for my first Camino. I hadn´t ever had trekking poles before. It took a day or two to get used to him, to accustom myself to this strange extra limb. But he soon felt like an old friend. In Conques a kind girl in the tourist office gave me Thérèse - she´d been left behind by an American pilgrim - and I quickly found out that two poles were much better than one. Thérèse lost her pointed tip some time ago, but she still performs well.

Iago and Thérèse, my right hand and my left hand. I really couldn´t manage without them. They help me up and down steep mountain slopes, they stabilize me on rock and in mud, they protect my knees from strain and injury. They give me confidence to ford rivers and streams. They warn off any dogs which turn out to be aggressive rather than simply curious. They embody the polar principles of the very Camino itself, both its yin and its yang, its sun and its moon, its positive and its negative. They are poles working together, always in rhythmic harmony, never apart. They are both the Spanish and the French halves of the Camino´s soul. They connect me with the earth below, yet also point up to the sky above. They keep me grounded, yet also promise the radiance of the stars.

(Posted from Cáceres, on the Vía de la Plata, Spain.)

Conques

On the 9th day of my journey we arrived at Conques (see 1st photo). Really I wanted to stay with the monks in the abbey of Sainte-Foy, but Thierry (he was bi-polar) said he felt uncomfortable with a large group of people, so we passed the night in the gîte municipal. The only other occupant was Jean-Claude, a French cyclist. He gave us a short history of this perfectly preserved medieval village (see 2nd photo), one of the loveliest villages in the whole of south-west France.

Conques clings to a hillside above the wooded gorge of the Dourdou river, a tributary of the Lot. In 819 AD (the same year as the relics of St James were discovered in Santiago) a hermit called Dadon founded the first religious community here. Later a monk from Conques stole from a nearby monastery the relics of a martyred young woman, Sainte Foy, with the idea of attracting travellers and therefore wealth to the new abbey being built at Conques.

The abbey was constructed by monks using the local limestone between the 10th and the 12th centuries. It was enlarged and extended to accommodate the growing number of pilgrims for whom Conques was an important halt on the way to Compostela. Its church and cloisters are among the most beautiful examples of Romanesque architecture anywhere.

In the 16th century the monastery was set on fire and left partially ruined by the Protestants. 3 hundred years passed. Then in 1838 the whole village was declared a historic monument, and by the end of the 19th century Prosper Mérimée (author of the story Carmen which inspired Bizet's opera) was appointed the 1st Inspector of Historic Monuments and began the abbey's restoration.

Today only residential traffic is allowed in the medieval streets, so most visitors enter on foot. Not to be missed is the impressive 12th century tympanum over the west door of the abbey-church, depicting the Last Judgement with 124 carved figures (see 3rd photo), and the treasury-museum which contains many priceless gold artefacts and holy relics.