Tree-lined lane in Angerville, France, 2007.

Getting Ready ~ Learning French

Parlez-vous français?

If you’re planning to go to France, especially for the extended adventure of a good long walk, there is no better way to enhance the experience than to speak French as well as possible. Not only does it make travel easier and less stressful, it makes it more fun. You can really get to talk to ordinary people and exchange stories and ideas.

But don’t let a lack of language prowess deter you from hiking the sentiers de grande randonnée. On my first walk, I knew only the bare rudiments of basic French, but just trying to speak their native tongue seemed to bring out the friendly best in people. (more…)

On the GR-3 along the Loire River, France, 2007.

Tips on Planning a Route

Organizing Waypoints

When I was planning my six-week 2007 walk, I began looking for information about the various places along the route. Sometimes I came upon information like this, outlining a trail in paragraph form: Orléans, La Chapelle-Saint-Mesmin, Saint-Ay, Meung-sur-Loire, Beaugency, Tavers (hors), Lestiou, Avaray, Muides-sur-Loire, Seuvres, Saint-Dye-sur-Loire, Chambord, La Chaussee-le-Compte, Cellettes, Saint-Gervais-la-Fôret, Blois, Chailles, Candé-sur-Beuvron, Chaumont-sur-Loire, Rilly-sur-Loire, Souvigny-de-Touraine, Amboise, Lussault-sur-Loire, Montlouis-sur-Loire, Vouvray, Roche-Corbon, Tours.

That may be a tasty mouthful of French, but it soon becomes a bewildering mess if you try to find information about any of these waypoints. (more…)

Hotel Saint Jacques, Le Puy-en-Velay, France.

Where to Sleep in France ~ Hôtels

Over the course of a long walk through France, there are many possibilities of where to get a good night’s rest. Over the last few years I’ve spent nearly 150 nights in France, in lodgings spanning the full range from “humble” to “luxury”. Here are a few explanations, opinions, and lessons learned. (more…)

Bar in rural France, along the Via Podiensis.”

The Secrets of France

Café or Bar?

OK (“Okay”), let’s just straighten this out right now, just so we avoid any confusion… After thousands of kilometers (thousands of miles!) walking across France, through towns big and small, I began to wonder – What’s the difference between a bar and a café? There is quite a difference in the USA, but in France, the difference eluded me for a long time. My curiosity notched up when friends started asking why I was always “sitting in a little bar” whenever I wrote them postcards. Hmmmn… (more…)

A brief rest on the trail from Lyon to Le Puy-en-Velay, France 2009.

Longwalk 2009 ~ Lyon to le Puy-en-Velay

Warming up for the oldest walk in western Europe.

I set off in late April, easing into the rhythm of the trail, and reached Le Puy in eight days. During that first week, I saw virtually no other walkers, aside from a few French day hikers on the weekend. I walked through one long day of rain, and only strayed from the path a few times. (That’s why it’s called a shakedown). Quite a bit of the trail follows an ancient Roman road, parts of which are still paved in stone.

Several guidebooks describe the eastern approaches to le Puy-en-Velay. I chose the excellent, though sometimes hard to find Chamina guide #207. It presents two routes – the one from Lyon (le chemin de Lyon au Puy-en-Velay in 9 stages (étapes)), which meets the other from Cluny, (le chemin de Cluny au Puy-en-Velay in 14 stages) coming down from the north. (more…)

The French section – 2009 walk from Lyon, France to Burguete, Spain.

Longwalk 2009 ~ Overview

“Don’t Stop Me Now”

Okay, okay, it’s more than a passing fancy, more than a hobby… when the stars align just so, what else can you do? Something gets into you when you walk so far. By late 2008 I was yearning once more for the Camino… But I’d been studying French… so I decided to put it all together on the most famous trail in France, the original pilgrimage road from Le Puy-en-Velay to St-Jacques-Compostele. For a shakedown, I decided to start in Lyon. This is the route of the French section I walked in 2009. The last part, from Montreal-de-Gers to the Spanish border at St-Jean-Pied-de-Port, is the same trail I walked in 2005 on the Voie de Vezelay (more…)

Longwalk route, France, 2007 – Paris to Bordeaux.

Paris to Bordeaux

I guess I was hooked… After arriving home from my three month ramble in 2005, I set about planning (along with dreaming, working, saving, studying, training) to stretch my legs again on the trails of Europe. Before long, I focused on returning to France in 2007.

As it turned out, Autumn worked best with my schedule, so I headed off to “the Hexagon” in late September. From my earliest thoughts of walking in France, I was curious about departing from the very heart of Paris. And so I did…

I walked from the zero-point in front of the Cathedral of Notre Dame south across the Beauce to Orleans and the Loire River valley, west through chateau country to Tours, and then south into the Aquitaine to Bordeaux. My muse, Eliza, likes to remind me that it took 42 days to walk from Paris to Bordeaux; but my return trip on the TGV high speed train took only 3 hours! “Keep that in mind, next time”, she tells me…

Longwalk route, 2005 – Reims, France to Santiago de Compostela, Spain.

so I marched April into May…

At last, I reached another crossroad in my life. I’d passed plenty of milestones, to be sure, but had also made my share of false starts and missteps along the way… so I gathered together what still remained in my control, and conspired to spend the Spring walking in France.

I’d made a few wilderness camping trips over the years, and tramped much of South America after college, but it was years since I’d hoisted more than a day pack to my shoulders. (more…)