Tag backpacking

French Camino: We Are Staying Where?

Reg Spittle 6 Comments

The French Camino offers long gaps between accommodations, pushing us to walk as many as 21 miles in a day. To avoid another day extending us beyond our comfort zone, we were booked last night in Lichos, hardly big enough to be called a hamlet.

See the photo on the left? That is where our digital map directed us for our shower, bed, dinner, and breakfast. It featured a garden shed and a parking lot. We were tired; it was at least 90 degrees. There was no sign of life, other than some colorful petunias. What now?

A text to our booking agent in England got a quick response and before we could have finished an ice cream cone, a tiny car pulled up and a much tinier old woman got out. “Bonjour!” she greeted cheerfully.

We were soon at her small home (that’s it, on the right). She spoke no English. You guessed it; we spoke little French. Let me tell you, we had an experience I never would have expected, as one extra-kind, 83-year-old woman gave us a bed, a shower, delicious three-course meal (with wine), and coffee, juice, toast, and jam in the morning. We chatted and even had a few laughs, thanks to Google translate. She told us she had lost her policeman-husband 10 years before.

In the morning, after we had said our “au revoirs,” Sue and I walked toward the French Camino. I turned around to take a last glimpse of the modest home. There stood our host, at the end of her driveway, waving.

Two days to go.

French Camino: Our Third Pilgrim Path

Reg Spittle 6 Comments
The Santiago de Compostela Cathedral and St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City welcomed us.

The French Camino is our third trek on a pilgrimage route, all marked by centuries of walking by Christians from all over the world. These days, many walk the paths for non-religious reasons, but it is almost impossible not to feel some spiritual aspect of each trek.

Our first pilgrimage path, in 2013, was the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James) across Spain and our second, in 2018, was Italy’s Way of St. Francis across northern Tuscany and through the Umbrian Mountains to Vatican City and Rome. Both finished at grand cathedrals, where spirits of pilgrims past seem to greet all who walk in their shadows. For a few trekkers we have met here, the French Camino continues beyond our current finishing point, St Jean Pied du Port, and continues all the way across Spain to Santiago de Compostela, as it did for centuries.

The finish of both our previous pilgrim treks was bittersweet. Our tired bodies welcomed the end, but our hearts told us we would miss the depth of experiences. As we near the end of the French Camino, our longest walk, I wonder how we will feel this time—after more than a million steps.

The third finish for Christian pilgrimages is Jerusalem, one we are unlikely to experience. But we won’t say never, will we?