The wind howls most of the night, which is quite alarming, but it drops off about dawn to absolutely calm and, I discover when I stick my head out of the door, it is quite mild for a change … and it is not raining! We, the family Borzakian and I, eat our breakfast in the well-equipped dining room and are off at 9 AM, which incidentally is when we are required to leave the gite. The timing for leaving and arriving is much more civilized in France, since it is normal to reserve one’s bed a day or two in advance. We leave Senergues and rapidly embark on the usual steep climb out of the valley. Before I am halfway up, I have both my fleece and my rain jacket off and I am sweating, perspiration dripping off my face. Cassandre, the bright chatty 11-year-old, is singing as we climb.

It is overcast but not raining and the rain keeps off all the way to Conques. The path is often on quiet, mostly flat winding roads but as we approach Conques, we veer off the road and descend just under 300 metres in a very steep and slippery descent. It is quite dangerous because the rocks are slippery and you have to place every foot carefully before you put weight on it. It is slow and treacherous and I have a very firm grip on my poles, placing them in front of me as I descend.We eventually reach almost the bottom of the gorge of the Dourdou River and come into Conques and the Abbey of Ste. Foy.

This where I notice that my ring finger on my left hand is numb and when I look at the nail, bruised and discoloured. It takes about an hour before the sensation and colour come back, which is a relief. I was really holding on tightly.

This extraordinary village is old, old, old and is built into the almost vertical side of the gorge. It is also a huge tourist attraction and it is easy to see why. It is so vertical, that it makes me think that I am in an Escher drawing. I can see where I want to go, but I have to figure out how to get there, up or down several levels of stone steps. The only level place in town is the small square immediately in front of the abbey. Inside the abbey are huge columns and a dome high overhead. It is almost unadorned, natural grey stone walls, columns and floor and wooden pews.

We eat lunch in a restaurant above the abbey and it is, as always so far in France, excellent. They take their culinary arts very seriously here. The French are proud of French cuisine and have every right to be. I pay my share of the bill, then head off to the bank machine, since I am down to change. To my horror the machine is not working at the moment. It tells me it is désolé, but not as désolé as I am. I have no cash and it is the only machine in town. An hour later it is working again, so I am able to get some Euros.

The abbey is huge and the gite is physically part of it. I am sleeping in Dortoir 1, on a lower bunk. Daniel has called ahead and made sure that they give me a lower bunk. I don’t know exactly what he told them, but I am treated with great care when I arrive. One of the good things they do here is provide each pilgrim which a large clear plastic bag into which they spray anti-bedbug stuff, then drop your backpack into it. The backpack stays in the plastic bag, so bedbugs don’t stand a chance here.

I have noticed this same type of care generally in the gites. They are very aware of the problem and do everything they can to keep the bugs under control. For example, there is an iron-clad rule: no backpacks on the beds. They can handle 100 pilgrims here and, to my relief, are able to take Visa to pay my accommodation and dinner, which total 27 Euros. I decide to stay over for another day and am able to keep my bed.

In the street in Conques I meet a hospitaliere, Penelope, from Vancouver. She says it is usually quite busy here. There are 6 of them to handle all the pilgrims, although they have cooking and cleaning staff to do some of the labour. I find out later that three of the six volunteers are Canadian, Penelope and two women from Quebec, all cheerful and happy. They work very hard for the two weeks or so that they are here. They tell me that there are lots of Canadian pilgrims, almost all from Quebec.

The family with whom I have been walking the last few days, the folks who rescued me on the GR 6, will not be going on. The Easter school break is finished and the two children, Cassandre and Victor, have to go back to school in Paris. I have two Ziplights with me, attached to zippers and, since I also have a headlamp for those dark nights in the gite, I remove them from my zipper pulls and give one to each of the children. I tell them that each time they turn them on, they will can remember me. They are properly delighted. Cassandre switches hers on and off repeatedly, just to be sure it works as advertised.

At dinner we sit in a crowded, noisy, happy, dining room with about 100 people. I think that the gite must be full. Dinner starts with taboulie on a bed of lettuce, followed by an excellent ratatouille of eggplant, tomatoes and ground beef. Of course, there is lots of bread, water and red wine. With us sits a family of six from Paris, the young mother and father, Anaïs Damame de Prunelé, Pierre-Alexandre Damane, their three children, Gaspard, four and a half, Aurèle, three and Maxime, 11 months and their grandmother Danièle, Pierre’s mother. I may not be the oldest pilgrim – I am hearing about a man a day or so behind us, who is 82 years old – but I believe that Maxime is definitely the youngest.

So I am sitting with five adults and five children, from 11 months to 11 years. I think that they cannot possibly be walking the chemin, but they are. The baby girl, Maxime, travels in a backpack carrier on either father’s or mother’s back, depending on who is less tired. But how do the little boys manage?

The secret is Cadichon, a rent-a-donkey. They started about 40 km back from here and will continue on another 20 km before they say goodbye to Cadichon and return home. I ask how they managed the steep difficult descent into Conques. Anaïs tells me that Cadichon is very sure-footed, although slow. She tells me that they have to do short stages because the donkey is old and slow. Each night they have to find a place that can look after them and stable the donkey. Both parents look a little worn and no wonder. This is a major enterprise every day but they all seem very happy. The boys are happy, active, rambunctious. The older one has walked almost the entire way, the younger rides on the donkey when he tires.

I am reminded of Robert Louis Stevenson’s book, Travels With A Donkey, which he wrote as he travelled for almost two weeks south from near Le Puy en Velay about 150 years ago. He had better weather than we are experiencing at the moment. He also noted the slow speed of his donkey who was named, if I remember correctly, Esmerelda. If I were a donkey I wouldn’t be in a hurry either. Over the two weeks he became very fond of her.

There is a pilgrim service in the abbey after dinner and I am asked if I will read a short benediction in English as part of the service. I am honoured to be invited to speak, even for a few moments, in this 750-year-old abbey. The short service is in French, with four brothers singing in Gregorian chant. Perhaps 60 people are seated in the cold, damp abbey, all with our fleeces on. Three of us, French, German and English go up to the lectern and read our benedictions. I find out later that I am the only English-speaker here, so I am preaching to a very small choir.

One of the brothers blesses the pilgrims who will be leaving in the morning. He asks if there are any English – there are none, which is how I know that I am the only English-speaking person. Other people come forward, in French, Flemish (there are 3) and German. He gives each one a small card with a pilgrim’s blessing on it. It seems to me that the pilgrims here are more often walking for religious reasons than those I met on the camino in Spain. When I think about how far some of these people have walked or plan to walk, it’s not a surprise.

It’s off to bed at about 9:30.

There is a fierce cold wind this morning, but at least it isn’t raining. Daniel asks me if I would like to go with them today. They are heading towards Conques, but plan to do it in two easy stages, 13 km today and 9 km tomorrow, which will give them … and me … most of the day tomorrow in Conques for sight-seeing. It will also put me back on the GR 65.

We have a French country breakfast – coffee with hot milk, orange juice, baguettes with butter and a variety of home-made jams. Mimi is a resourceful cook, as well as a superb host. When we leave I hold her face in mine and tell her how lucky I am to have gotten lost yesterday and to have been brought here to meet her and share her hospitality. We do the mandatory three kisses and off we go.

The “we” is a larger group than I expect. It includes not only Daniel and Arlette and the two kids, but also the three brothers and their wives, so there are 11 of us. The path today is much easier than yesterday’s (It would be hard put to be more difficult), not so steep and mostly on small country lanes with perhaps two cars every hour. The call of “voiture, voiture” rings out and everyone crowds the side of the road. Interestingly, almost all the pilgrims walk on the right side, not the left. Perhaps it’s because the road is really only one car wide, so they stay on the side nearest the driver.

The wind diminishes and it gets warm. Off with the fleece and later off with the rain jacket.

Sometimes the group is small and dense but more often we break up in small groups, either chatting or just walking together. I learn that the two brothers will walk on, while Guy, the oldest brother, along with the three sisters-in-law, will walk to Conques, visit there for a day, then Guy will get a ride back to Campuac to pick up his car and return for the ladies.

When we go off the road, it is usually a path down the side of a ravine to the brook below (although these brooks are dangerous, they are so full and fast) then across on a footbridge and inevitably up the other side of the ravine. I had rather naively expected that after we came down off the Massif Central, the way would be fairly flat. Wrong.

I have been told about the Appalachian Trail in the US that there was never a hill that the folks who laid it out would rather go around rather than over and that certainly holds true here. The GR 65 seems to go over every hill that it can find, which means that there are a lot of stunning vistas, accompanied by a lot of equally stunning climbs and descents. Here is one explanation: this pilgrim path from Le Puy was lost for hundreds of years.

In the 1970s, when the camino started to become popular, the folks in France, bless their hearts, decided to simply declare that an existing hiking trail, the GR 65, was the Chemin de St. Jacques. But while the pilgrims look for the most available direct route, hikers, with different motivation, want to see the sights, so their path goes over everything and avoids villages to boot. So we get to take the most scenic, circuitous route possible. I do not have any qualms about taking the road if I can see that I will end up in the same place. I enjoy the scenic views as much as anyone, but not at the expense of my legs and lungs.

My concern last year about the condition of my heart has been put to rest. If anything were going to bring on a cardiac crisis, these hills would do it. I have learned to take much shorter, slower steps and to stop for a rest whenever my breathing gets too fast and deep, say one deep suck of air with every step. At the same time I can hear Cassandre singing – SINGING! – as I plod wearily up the slopes. Oh for just a little of her energy.

As we pass one old homestead, I discover the origin of the roofline so familiar in Quebec, the steep roof and the shallow part near the eave, used to let the snow slide off the roof and be thrown clear of the walls of the home. It’s the same here, but with stone tiles rather than the red metal so often seen in Quebec. This homestead has 1791 carved over the doorway and near it on the same piece of wall there is an old arch, the entry into a farmyard. The keystone has 1316 carved into it, barely visible, it is so worn by age.

Think about it. That’s almost 700 years ago, or more than 35 generations ago. To write that, one needs scientific notation (grand-parents x 35). At about noon we stop for lunch. This is the first place that we have seen for food since we left this morning. In this aspect, this is very unlike the camino in Spain. There, there were frequent places to stop for sustenance. Not so much here.

We only have about three km to go, but there is consensus for lunch. In addition, I am flying blind. I don’t know where I am going but I do know that Daniel has called ahead and reserved a bed for me, so I am sticking with him. Lunch is a generous slice of hot cooked ham in a tasty sauce, pasta, bread and wine on the side – all for 10 Euros each.

We finally get underway again. The fleece goes back on, since it has gotten colder again. Only three km on and we arrive at the gite Volets Bleues (blue shutters) in Sénergues.

As we are walking this morning, one of the brother’s wives gives me a little lesson in pronunciation. I probably learned this in French but, if so, I have forgotten. At the end of a word such as Sénergues, the “u’ is not pronounced but it has an impact on how the “g” is pronounced. Without the “u”, the “g” is soft as in the second “g” in garage, so Sénerges would be pronounced “Saynergh”. With the “u”, the “g” is hard, so Sénergues is pronounced “Saynerg”. There may be a test later.

I am installed in a room with four beds, by myself for the moment. My benefactors are next door. My room has a spectacular view. The room quickly fills with three men, two French and a Flemish-speaking Belgian from Antwerp, from where he has walked for the past seven weeks. He plans to go to Santiago, another nine weeks, for a total of four months on the road. I feel like a piker with my planned 750 km.

The gite is full and now people arriving are told they have to go to Conques, about 9 kms farther. I am seeing that there are a lot of people on this section of the chemin and having a daily reservation is a really good idea. Daniel has already told me that they have a reservation at the monastery in Conques and would I like to join them. They are very companionable and kind, and the kids are fun so; “Yes I would”. He will see what he can do about that.

I am not actually concerned about getting a bed in Conques. If the gites are full, there are always hotels and one only has to pay enough to get a room (I hope). He manages to reserve me a bed before dinner.

Dinner is, of course, excellent. A vegetable soup followed by a type of thick hamburger patty of a huge bed of lettuce. I discover that this is the appetizer! A dinner of sausage, baked potato and baked tomato follows, ending up with a soft rich custard in a tall glass. Good thing I am walking or I would be gaining weight every day.

As I go to bed the wind is howling outside and our hosts tell us that the forecast is for rain tomorrow. We shall see. Everything I have is now dry, so I can brave the elements.

Today was a day full of surprises. The first unwelcome surprise is that the chemin out of Estaing is a very steep climb in the woods. I would guess at least 300 metres vertical. I have to stop at least ten times to catch my breath on the way up, in the rain and the cold. There has been so much rain that the path, one person wide, is a busy stream, running downhill past me.There is no surprise that it is cold and raining. It was cold and raining when I went to bed and I slept fitfully with two blankets. I was however, alone in my little cubicle, so I could spread out my gear. In the morning I eat some yogurt and a banana that I bought yesterday and share some tea that Aurele and Jean-Louis have made.

I gear up, wearing my fleece, my rain jacket and my rain pants – yes, it is raining that hard – and off I go across the river Lot on the huge four-arch bridge and start to follow the signage. There is an immediate hard left turn followed by the climb. After I have finally reached the top of this very steep long climb, there is, happily, a paved road and I follow the signs, the red over white rectangle marking for a GR (grande randonée). Perhaps half an hour later I meet a family of four, two adults, two children, who turn out to be a couple with two of their grand-children.

The next and much more unwelcome surprise is that I am not going where I think I am going. As we walk he asks me where I am headed today and I tell him “Golinhac”. He says; “But this is not the way to Golinhac. We are heading for Campuac”. It turns out that I am on GR 6, not GR 65, miles out of my way and I have no idea where I went wrong. I did not realize that there was a junction. And since it is pissing down rain, this is not a good time to pull out my guidebook and see. As I stand there dumbfounded, he asks me what will I do. I tell him that I will go on, then see what I can figure out to get to where I intend to be. After a few minutes of walking together, he asks if I have booked a bed in Golinhac. I tell him that I have not. He then suggests that I walk with them as far as Campuac, which I agree to do. What else am I going to do? I am effectively lost in this wet cold hilly wilderness.

The little girl walks with me. I have told them that I am Canadian and she, Cassandre Fouques Duparc, wants to practice her English and, like most kids, is not shy about another language. She is actually pretty good. (Her mother is a translator). She tells me that she is 11 and the boy, who is her cousin Victor Vasseur and taller, is 10. The two adults are not their parents, but their grandparents, Arlette and Daniel.

At one point we come across a little hamlet where there is a man doing something rural and Daniel stops to talk with him. It isn’t raining at the moment. The discussion is friendly and animated and has to do something with Daniel knowing someone or is related somehow to someone here and it all ends up with us being invited into Jean Radalié’s “cave”, his wine cellar which is at road level and we are invited to have a little wine for the road. It’s only just past 11, but the sun is over the yard-arm somewhere. Arlette has a rosé, Daniel and Jean and I have some red wine, from a barrel marked 18-4-12, which means the wine is 6 days old. And it is just fine. At this point Daniel asks me if I would like to stay where they are staying overnight, at the gite of a friend in Campuac. Yes I would – these are kind and friendly folk – so he calls and makes the arrangement. We are so appreciative of Jean’s wine-making efforts that Jean offers a little taste of a fortified wine, Aperitif Ratafia, which he has made. This is also just fine and just what we need as the skies open up again and off we go. Just before we leave a whole herd of cows walks by us on the road. The kids are delighted.

Yesterday I noticed walking into Estaing that the sign was bilingual, French and – I am guessing here – langue d’Oc. I seize the moment here and ask Jean if he speaks langue d’Oc. He laughs and tells me, in French; “Yes, but you won’t understand a word”. The he launches into the ancient local language and he’s right. None of us understands a word. But I find it fascinating that an old local language is still being spoken here.

The path veers off the road after a few minutes and we descend in another steep brook to where it joins a larger stream which is surging over the path, about 15 feet wide, muddy and no way to avoid walking through it. Daniel tries to walk over the place where the water drops rapidly away, but it does not look safe and if he slips he will be 50 feet downstream and way downhill. About ten feet above that, it’s fast but flat, so I test with my poles, discover that it is less than a foot deep and walk smartly across. I figure less time in the water is less water in the boots. And it works pretty well. My boots and lower pants are soaked but my feet feel dry. (It’s an illusion, which I will discover later when I take my boots off.) I have a photo but am failing photo insertion. So you will get to see it later when I am less tired.

After another arduous climb, we stop for something to eat in a farmyard. Yes, the path here, just as in Spain, goes through people’s property. We share what we have, some bread, sausage, cheese. It’s not much but it hits the spot. Again the trail descends into a ravine with rushing water at the bottom, but it is narrow enough that we can jump it. Of course, the descent is followed immediately by another hard ascent. I am getting tired of this … and I am getting tired. At last we see a sign for Campuac and Cassandre shouts out; “We are here!” Well, it turns out that we ARE in Campuac, where the only bar is For Sale, and the friend’s gite is about 2 km the other side, out in the country. So we walk and walk … and walk.

Just before we arrive here, we meet with two pilgrims, brothers Pierre and Jacques Vuillet, who Daniel tells me are friends. They are coming to the same gite, where they will meet their brother Guy, who is bringing all three wives by car to meet the pilgrim pair. They started from their home, just this side of the Swiss border from Geneva and intend to walk to Santiago.

At one point the rain turns to hail. As if it hasn’t been miserable enough! At least it is mostly level and all paved, but I sure am glad when we turn in to a long country lane. It is the gite d’etape du Barthas and Mimi, the hospitaliere, makes me feel like part of the extended family. It is Victor, the 10-year-old, who stamps my pilgrim passport.

Cassandre has borrowed my book and after reading about 40 pages (her mother is a translator) with a very serious voice pronounces it “super”. That warms the cockles of my heart. At dinner I promise them that I will send three copies; one for Cassandre, one for Victor and one for Daniel and Arlette.

It is sunny for a little bit, then back to rain … and always cold. I see a newspaper headline that reads “the weather makes a mockery of springtime”. I would agree.

I tell Mimi and Daniel that I feel very lucky that I got lost today. and ended up here with this family. Daniel tells me that it is St. Jacques who got me lost today. I can scarcely argue.

We have an excellent dinner, starting with an aperitif, then quiche and salad, sausage with baby peas and carrots, cheese plate, creme brulee, all accompanied by red wine. After dinner people want to take photos. Mimi, the hospitaliere, stands next to me (she is about 3 inches taller than me when I’m sitting) and holds my hand. I love it. It is like being an honoured member of the family – such love.

I go to bed, warm, dry and full of good food and red wine, hopeful that my clothes and my boots will be dry in the morning. It is raining and blowing as I go to sleep.

I sleep a long time in my grand suite and wake up with the light – not the sun – coming in through the window. Outside it is gray and raining lightly. Oh well. I have good rain gear and it is getting a great test.

At 8 AM there is a knock on the door and M. Roue, my host, brings in a tray of breakfast. So not only do I have this whole floor to myself, I get room service, including two kinds of homemade jam and gateau maison, a sweet bread made by Mme. Roue. All this for 18 Euros.

By the time I leave at 9:15, the clouds have broken up and there is sun peeking through with lots of blue sky showing. It looks very promising for the day. I very soon have to take off my fleece. But it is a cruel trick. Within the hour, the skies have clouded over and then the eventual rain starts, lightly at first and then more steadily. I had decided to walk the highway option, just north of the river Lot, rather than the GR65 option. I can see the hills immediately south of the river and they look severe. They are heavily wooded and come right down to the water’s edge. The river is about 20 metres across and is fast water, but it is not over the banks. Just wait until all that snow at Nasbinal melts!

Where I am, on the north side of the river, just above the floodplain in a narrow valley, it is flat, with sparse traffic and the sides of the highway are flat crushed stone, so walking is easy. When traffic does come along, I step as far as I can to the left and sometimes just stop and wait for the vehicle to pass. Just to my right, across the highway, the hills climb in terraces to the summit. This south-facing slope is wine country, which is confirmed when I pass the Maison de la Vigne du Vin et des Paysages d’Estaing, which is a winery but is, unfortunately, closed.

I arrive by 12:30 in very good time, just over three hours for 19 km, much, much better than yesterday, five hours for 16.5 km.

Estaing is officially one of the prettiest villages in France. Unofficially, at the moment it is one of the wettest and coldest. This is a very photogenic town. There is a big four-arch bridge over the river Lot, which is about 35 metres wide as it flows through the town. I stand on it and get some, I think, good shots of the very old skyline here. The bridge is just wide enough for one vehicle so when a truck goes over it, I have to stand in a small triangular lay-by, obviously built for pedestrians caught as I am by a vehicle. Clearly when it was built, the vehicles were horse- or man-drawn.

And, of course, since we are in France, practically everything is closed, either for lunch or for the day. One restaurant is open, where I meet the Aussies, as well as Henk and a couple of others from two days ago. Soon after arrive, they all go on for Golhinac and points west, so I likely will not meet them again.

I order a substantial meal, which is a good thing since I discover that virtually everything will be closed this evening. While I am eating, Aurele and Jean-Louis arrive and join me at my table. They are mud to the knees, which is funny since it was Aurele who suggested the road as an alternative to the trail.

We go to a small Tabac, where the lady signs us in for the communal gite and gives us keys, warning us to keep the door locked at all times. The gite is 300 metres up the road in an old church building. It is a single dormitory of 20 beds, but every two beds are in a small, separate cubicle with a curtain door, so there is the illusion of privacy – not audible but visual. We have to be out by 9 AM.

Eileen and Nicolas have arrived at the gite as well, so it is turning into old home week. Several of us walk back into town, in a non-rainy moment (which doesn’t last) and the nice lady from the Tabac has called one of he friends who has opened up her food store so that we can purchase the makings for dinner and breakfast. I also get my credential stamped at the Tabac.

A funny story from yesterday. When I arrived in St. Come d’Olt I could not find the gite. I saw four young people, locals and asked them where it was. But I started by saying, in French; “J’ai un question. Je suis Canadien Anglais.” One of the pert young things, and she was pert, responded; “Et je suis Française Française.” Big laugh all around and I had the perfect retort, but while I was trying desperately to translate the past tense of “I have” as in “I had gathered that”, the moment passed. My language skills failed me when I needed them most. Apparently she is not familiar with the persuasion of Canadians who have to preface their nationality with the sub-genre, as if being just Canadian is not quite enough.

And I learned an important lesson. Well, important for me. I do not have to explain where I come from when I speak a foreign language. The audience will figure out soon enough that I am not local and, if they care, will ask where I come from. And I will then, only then, tell them that I am Canadien and only if they really care, Canadien Anglais.

Several other people have arrived at the gite, so we are about 10 people. One of them is Sylvie Charette, probably in her 30’s, from the south shore of Montreal. She started in Le Puy and is going to see how far she can get in 45 days.

And here is a factoid that Marina will just love. Jean-Louis whistles the theme song from the Wizard of Oz when he is doing something. Takes me back.

This is to be my first day of walking and a major test to see if the combination of the training that I have done over the past two months and the medication which I am taking for diabetes will do the trick.

I have breakfast at the gite in St. Chely d’Aubrac, hot milk and coffee in a big bowl, a little orange juice and bread with butter and some marmalade. I am on the road by 8:30, dressed in long-johns, melton wool undershirt, shirt (courtesy of Ed Zenowski), pants, fleece, rain jacket and hat. My pack has its rain jacket on as well. It is not raining as I leave, but starts within a few minutes, not heavy but cold. I am expecting this section to be pretty easy, about 19 km and a drop of 600 metres, but I am quickly disabused of this expectation. The walk out of St. Chely is uphill, perhaps 200 metres of vertical, and then it switches between uphill and long downhills all the way to St. Come. To add to the fun, it’ s been raining for the past two weeks, so the path is, as often as not, a fast stream running in the track.

There are a lot of people on the path, almost always someone in sight before or behind. Since the way-finding is very well marked, this is just a little extra reassurance that I am going the right way. On one of the uphill sections, I am taking tiny steps, trying to keep out of the water (we can’t keep out of the mud) and just sucking for air. This is one of the times when I don’t look up to see how far it is to the top. It would just be discouraging. The track always turns to one side or the other at the top of each climb, so I don’t get to see just how far I have still to go. This is a good thing.

Within an hour I have my fleece off and stowed and within another hour I have the rain jacket off, since I am sweating with the effort of climbing and descending. Of course eventually I have to put the rain jacket back on, since the rain returns.

At one low point on the trail, I cross a bridge over a fast, full mountain stream. The bridge is about 2 metres wide, about 10 metres above the water and is just the trail with some grass on either side. Karsten (you will remember Karsten from Berlin, who walked with me in Spain in 2007 and again from Le Puy last year), who does not like heights, would not be impressed by this bridge.

Where the land opens up, the vistas are breathtaking, pastoral, rolling country, little villages with their inevitable church spire. I can hear birds, rushing water (often under my feet), the wind and the sound of my own footsteps (often the squelch of my own footsteps). What I cannot hear is the sound of traffic. When I am on a paved country road, there is no traffic. Except once: on one road, a four-wheel ATV followed by a motorcycle roar by, both he vehicles and their riders covered in mud. They are in he mud voluntarily!

At one point about halfway through the walk, I turn a corner by a small building and there is a group of pilgrims standing there. The explanation is soon obvious. A local farmer and entrepreneur and supporter of pilgrims, has built a shelter and put out a table of coffee and tea with powdered milk and a small box asking for one Euro donation for a cup. It’s a donation we gladly make. It lifted my spirits and , I am sure, those of my fellow pilgrims. Some of these pilgrims were my fellow guests in St, Chely last night. On arrival in St.Come, I cannot find the gite that I seek. I had Sylvie, the host in St. Chely, call ahead and make a reservation for me. I walk into town, ask a local and get the directions: walk back 500 metres, turn left and there it is. But it is closed. It says open but the door is locked. I sit in the garden under an overhang (since it starts to rain hard) for about an hour until the door opens and I am welcomed in. This is not like any gite that I have ever been in. It is the second floor of a very nice private home, there are only five places … and I am the only guest. This gets me a double bed, a light over the bed, kitchen facilities, but no food.

I wash out my smalls and my pant legs, which are mud to the knees and then sleep for about 90 minutes. It feels great.

Today is election day in France. They are voting for president. It’s an interesting and effective way to conduct this exercise. There are 10 candidates from extreme left through the centre to extreme right. After today’s results, the two with the highest counts will have runoff election in two weeks. This way, they guarantee a majority result. Sarkosy is expected to be one of the two. We shall see what happens.

And since it is Sunday in France, I discover that the recommended restaurant is not open for business – but they do let me use their wireless connection, so I talk with Carroll and my daughter Meredith who are in Brooklin (near Whitby, Ontario) celebrating our grand-daughter’s third birthday and our nephew’s daughter’s first communion, for which Carroll created the dress.

There are two other pilgrims sitting here as well and one of them, Aurele from Paris, suggests that I ask where they are staying and see if I can have dinner there. I do and I can. I am just about to head there for dinner.

I eat dinner with only four other people, Aurele and her companion Jean-Louis and Eileen from England and her boyfriend Nicolas from France. Jean-Louis speaks little English, so we converse mostly in French. They are all walking the chemin, although Eileen only has two weeks of holidays so she will walk as far as she in that short period.

Dinner, cooked and served by Antoine, is excellent. Before I tell you about it, I learned some new French. Today is Bella’s birthday, so I told him about this and that she was three today. I used the term “jour de naissance” and added that she is three today. He looked confused, then brightened and corrected me, since in French, un “jour de naissance”, is only the day that you are born. All other birthdays are “anniversaire de naissance”, which actually makes more sense, if you think about it.

So, to dinner. Five courses: carrot soup, a puree with tiny bits of carrot, a slice of pâté, a main course of sausage with tomatoes and onions mixed, plus green beans (green veggies at last!), a cheese plate and crème brûlée. It is all excellent aAll this for 15 €, plus 1.5€ for a quarter litre of red wine. What a bargain! After dinner we discuss tomorrow.

Apparently the chemin from here to Estaing goes scenically up and over the hills, while the road goes directly and follows the river. The river option is highly recommended. I will decide in the morning, although the river option is looking better by the moment.

It is raining as I walk back to my gite, so I get a little wet in my fleece and sandals. But they will be dry by morning. I have passed today’s test. Let’s see what tomorrow will bring.

I spend a restless night in the Gite. The bed is comfortable, but the room is warm and close and extremely dark. I have clearly not finished with jet lag yet, since I am wide awake at 2 AM, but cannot turn on a light since there are three other people sleeping here. So I lie here, thinking about all kinds of things. I get up a couple of times, walk into a wall in the dark and use the convenient bathroom. I must remember to get out my tiny headlamp and have it available at night. Lots of little etiquette things to remember when walking with a pack and sleeping with others. I doze on and off and eventually it is 7 AM and there are stirrings in the other beds. I get up, test my blood glucose – it’s fine and head downstairs for breakfast.

Breakfast is coffee with hot milk (separately), oranges sliced into sections and baguettes with butter and a homemade jam made from blackberries. People are very quiet, not the bonhomie of last night but a mental preparation for the day. I tell them that I may see them in a few days, since I will be one day ahead of them but plan to stop for a rest day after four days walking.

Vincente calls a cab for me and it arrives at 8:30. I pay my bill here – it’s 33 Euros ($43) for dinner (with red wine), accommodation and breakfast, a bargain in my view. Since I have the technology with me, I am tracking my expenses for this trip. People often ask me what it cost for my walk on the camino and I can’t tell them. This time I am better prepared.

I wish those remaining; “Bon chemin” and off we go, just me and the driver, who tells me in almost accent-less English; “I don’t speak English”. It is one of the baggage transport taxis and the driver evidently knows the route, which is very curvy, extremely well. The weather is low overcast, and so misty the driver has to use the wipers. It is also cold. He drives it competently and about 30 kph faster than I would, right on the edge of control.

As we approach and then leave Nasbinal, the countryside is littered with boulders, some as large as trucks. All the fields are lined with stone walls. It looks like the result of decades of hard work, clearing the fields of stones and, every spring, new ones start to emerge from the ground. It is probably the residue from an old glacier as the ice receded about 10,000 years ago.

We start to see snow in the trees, then more and more as we climb until the roads are edged with banks of snow and the surface is slushy and quite slippery. My driver gets very cautious here. We have climbed into the cloud cover, so visibility is about 100 metres and it is COLD. The fields are completely snow-covered and the pilgrims we pass are bundled up against the cold and the wind. They, perhaps 50 in total over many kilometres, are all walking on the road since the hiking path is impassable with snow. Frankly, I am happy to bypass this section, which I walked last year. Last year it was much warmer here with no snow. I am told that snow cover is normal for this time of year here. We pass the Col d’Aubrac at 1372 metres and start down the 600 metre drop into St. Chely d’Aubrac. It is a steep and windy descent, not quite but almost switchback. When I walked this section last year with Francine from Besançon it was warm enough that we were able to lie down and sleep just beside the path. Not this year.

On arrival in St. Chely d’Aubrac (I have to use the full name because there is another St. Chely d’Apcher just north of Aumont-Aubrac) I find that the gite here does not open until 3 PM. It’s just after 9 AM so I have six hours to kill. I leave my backpack – I am assured that it is safe – and walk into the village, find an open restaurant, order grande crème and a croissant, plug in my iPad and start writing.

Two small groups of pilgrims have come in, had their coffee or hot chocolate and have departed for farther down the road. My plan is to walk about 70 kms over the next four days, then take a rest day in Conques. After that, 100 kms in five days to Rocamadour and another rest day. Rocamadour is off route, but I really want to see this town built on a cliff over a river. The images I have seen of it have been stunning and friends who have been there tell me it’s worth the detour.

Today is my oldest son’s, Francis’s, birthday. Happy birthday, Francis. He practices law in Thunder Bay with his wife and they live just outside Kakabeka Falls. Both Thunder Bay and Kakabeka Falls are a little too urban for their tastes. Carroll and I visited them about six weeks ago. They were in very good spirits, since he had just gotten very good news from the neurosurgeon who operated on him for a broken neck, which had gone undetected for six months, until he started having mobility problems. He was being treated for concussion which, while present, was not the main problem. He was able to take off the collar which he had been wearing for three months and resume something like a normal life, including driving and being able to see down the front of his body.

As I was travelling south yesterday, I noted that the countryside was much like parts Ontario, except that the houses are all stucco, grey to beige to yellow and all the roofs are red tile … and the occasional chateau on the hilltops. As we got closer to Aumont-Aubrac the roof tile colours changed from red to dark grey or black.

Here is St. Chely d’Aubrac it is raining lightly, continues cold … and that is the forecast for the next few days. I see a lot of rain pants being worn, so I think that I will try mine out tomorrow.

It is just after 1. I am now in the gite. I am told by Sylvie, who operates this warm and very clean gite d’étape, that it has been raining here for two weeks steadily with more to come. The rain is heavier now. The boots have to stay outside under a wide porch awning, so I am glad of my little boot identifiers. I note that someone has exactly the same boots as mine.

I am in a room with three beds. One has been occupied by a man who has walked from Lyon and intends to walk to Santiago (or, as they call it in France, St. Jacques). He is reclusive, I don’t even find out his name. There are many people here, but he speaks to no-one, joins no conversation, reads books from the plentiful supply here. The other is a German named Guido, dark, lean, talkative. I have showered, washed all my clothes and they are drying. I asked if there was a sechoir (dryer) and was told there was. It turns out to be a collapsible drying rack, next to a ceramic heat source. Since there are a lot of clothes hanging here, they are going to take a long time to dry – hopefully by morning. It ends up with two drying racks, because everyone has lots of wet clothes from the weather.

We do not have wi-fi here, although we have free use of their computer, which is on-line. The downside is that it has, no surprise, a French keyboard with key locations different from those I am used to. I walk downhill into the village where there is WiFi and use Skype to talk .. and see … my daughter, granddaughter, sister-in-law, her son Paul and grandson Craig. The technology is, for me, simply staggering. I am sitting in a remote village in France, they are in a car near Toronto and we can speak to and see each other in real time. I also take the opportunity to send my blog about Vichy France.

People have kept coming in here, all very wet, so we are now about 18 people, from France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Poland, Australia and Canada. There is an animated conversation at the table, where we wait for dinner, in German. I join it for a while, then lose track of the drift of the conversation. I am looking forward to dinner. If the smell is any indication, it’s going to be good.

And it is good. A pureed pea soup, followed by rice with a really good pork curry, flavourful and so much that we cannot eat it all. A cheese plate follow, then dessert, a custard with pieces of meringue on top and what tastes like maple syrup at the bottom.

One of the arrivals, a Dutchman named Henk, tells me that he and three others walked on the chemin in the high country and it was deadly, very dangerous, snow up to their knees and they could see nothing but snowfields. When the path finally crossed a road, they took the road all the way to here.

He also told me that there is a pilgrim, a couple of days back, a 92-year-old Frenchman carrying a 12-kilo backpack. I guess I will never get to be the oldest walker on the path!

At the beginning of World War II, after the attack on Poland in the autumn of 1939 both the French and the British declared war on Germany, put their forces into place in France, then waited .. and waited … and waited. It was known as the “phoney war”. Hitler realised that the Allies were not going to defend Poland or attack Germany, so he prepared, then in 1940 launched the blitzkrieg (lightning war) driving tanks and infantry, supported by close air support, through the supposedly impassable Ardennes Forest. The Allies were stunned by this flanking manoeuvre and quickly lost ground. These ancient enemies, France and England, did not trust each other and the lack of trust created an ongoing communications crisis.

The French decided that they could not withstand the onslaught and sued for peace. The British, feeling betrayed, evacuated the remnants of their army through Dunkirk, declaring a victory by getting most of their men out, but leaving virtually all of their heavy weaponry. The evacuation at Dunkirk is a story in itself, with thousands of private British boats assisting the navy to evacuate survivors.

The Germans occupied the northern half of France and installed a puppet government under Marshal Pétain in the southern half, with the government in Vichy. A lot of people over the years have accused the French of simply rolling over when the Germans attacked. What I did not know was that, in the first month of the attack on France, they sustained over 100,000 killed in action. That is approximately twice the number of American fatalities during all the years of the Vietnam war. I think that the French believed, with some accuracy, that they were going to lose a second generation of young men to another war in a span of 20 years and decided that that was too high a price to pay.

One of the appalling parts of the history of Vichy France is their treatment of the Jews. There were many, many Jewish refugees from the rest of Europe who had fled to apparent safety in France prior to 1939. As the Germans executed their “final solution”, the deliberate extermination of the Jews, Vichy France was only too eager to assist. While many Jewish French citizens were helped by their gentile neighbours, the Jewish refugees, most in refugee camps, had no one to help them. The rules concerning who was a Jew in Vichy France were more draconian than those in occupied France or in Germany itself. They were rounded up by French police and transported to the extermination camps in their tens of thousands. Most did not survive.

There was, of course, an active resistance movement both in occupied France and in Vichy France but, as a wise and cynical Frenchwoman said much later, there were a lot more resistance fighters after the war than during the war. For many years after the war, the French government simply denied its complicity in the round-up of the Jews but this denial has since been rescinded.

I get up early and have a leisurely breakfast at a tiny place on a side street near the hotel. Of course I have two baguettes and a grande creme (that’s the new-to-me term for cafe au lait, or a latte). It’s cool and overcast, the forecast is for rain, but there is none while I am in Paris. I get a taxi from here to the Bercy train station and there confirm my ticket to Clermont-Ferrand and finally, finally, get a ticket for the bus from Clermont to Aumont-Aubrac. Neither I nor my travel agent could purchase this ticket on-line, even though the bus is run by the railway company.

The train leaves sharp at 1 pm, of course, we’re in Europe where trains always run on time. I sleep most of the way, although I do note that the land is flat as we travel south for the first two hours. The next 90 minutes the land starts to roll. About 40 minutes before Clermont we stop briefly at Vichy. Vichy is famous for its water and infamous for being the capital of the puppet government of the southern half of France during World War II. I will tell you more about Vichy France later.

At Clermont I have 12 minutes to find and get on the bus which, like all busses in Europe, is spotlessly clean. As we continue to roll south, the country gets seriously hilly and the weather gets seriously wet and cold – about 5 degrees by the time we arrive in Aumont-Aubrac. I debus, get my backpack (yes, it came off the plane nicely) and walk a few minutes to the Ferme Barry, where I am welcomed by the owner, Vincente and his wife. He does not remember me, but I remember him. He is a big friendly bear of a man, who cooks the meals here, including his famous arigot, a mix of mashed potatoes and cheese that strings out like pasta. And dinner will be soon.

I have a bed in a room with four others, all men. Along with five women, we eat at a communal table, good filling food and red wine, water for those who want it. My iPad is a big hit, since everyone wants to see either tomorrow’s route (for them – I am taking transport to St. Chely d’Aubrac) or their hometown. They are mostly French, with one Swiss and one French-Canadian young woman. Also the images of Cian and Bella, which are my screen savers, are very popular.

I am glad to have today behind me, since it was one of the more tedious days and I wasn’t sure until about noon that I could get here today on the bus. So all’s well that ends well, and today is ending very well indeed.

We have arrived at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris after a mostly smooth flight and there on the baggage carousel, after a few anxious minutes, is my backpack in its nondescript black bag with a rainbow baggage strap. That is one concern put to rest.

Then I pick up SIM cards for my phone and my iPad. Here’s something new: when you buy a SIM card now, you have to register it with photo ID within 15 days or it is deactivated. Probably it’s something to do with counter-terrorism.

The next move is to go outside and find a taxi. Last year when I was here I found a bus, but finding it and taking it into the city took about three hours. The taxi from the airport is a little pricey, 70 Euros, but it is worth it for the Le Mans ride the driver gives me. On the major roads, motorcycles drive not in the lanes but on the lane markings, so they weave in and out of traffic, with inches to spare, at a very high rate of speed. And we drive along beside the Seine and past the Eiffel tower. It’s still huge as you get close to it.

There are a lot of construction cranes everywhere and barges full of sand and gravel on the Seine, so I don’t think that the economy is quite as bad here as we read in the North American papers.

The hotel is directly across the road from the Tour Montparnasse, a black highrise office tower of perhaps 60 stories that is completely out of character with the neighbourhood, and very close to the Montparnasse train station, not the Bercy station that I thought I was booking near. Right city, wrong train station. This is the second time in less than a month that I have booked the wrong location on line. The other one was much worse.

I was trying to book a small Austrian resort, the Salzberger Hof Resort in Batchawana Bay on the Eastern shore of Lake Superior for a couple of days in August. From their website I was taken to another, booking.com, where I entered data into the right fields and was finally rewarded with my confirmed reservation for the Salzberger Hof, only this one WAS in Austria. It took me several emails to Austria and to booking.com to get that sorted out and the Austrian place informed me that I should know that Austria is not in Canada.

I expect to spend a quiet day here. The weather is cool, partly cloudy but not raining, so that’s a plus. I will be off tomorrow morning by train for points south. I am anxious to get on the road. I sleep for a few hours, then go out to find something to eat.

At 7 pm I am sitting in a little bistro, the Odessa, facing out to watch the fascinating people as they walk by. It’s cool and raining lightly, but turns sunny as the evening progresses. Fashion sense is still good here. Most people are in pants, jeans, etc but every once in a while a fashionista walks by. There is one, an older woman, head held regally high in a stunning patterned yellow jacket and skirt. She could be on a fashion show runway anywhere. People are smoking, walking dogs, carrying baguettes – so it is not just an old myth. There are very very few overweight, none obese. North American agribusiness has not penetrated here … yet. I see only one identifiable Muslim in the passers-by, although the pleasant and helpful hotel clerk is Mohammad, which is a clue. This is not a good place to jaywalk. Cars and motorcycles are fast and the roads narrow.

I am absorbing the sounds, smells, feel of Paris as I sit here. An old couple goes by, arm in arm, laughing. It reminds me of Carroll and me. We are so lucky. Almost 54 years married and still best friends.

Off to bed. We will see what tomorrow brings. All being well, I will be at La Ferme Barry in Aumont-Aubrac in time for dinner, for which Vincente, the owner, is justly famous (I ate there last year but we could not get accommodation.)

This is a first for me. It’s shortly after 8 PM and we have left Montreal for Paris. I am sitting comfortably in the cabin of an aircraft at 35,000 feet, entering data into my iPad. I have it on aircraft mode, of course , so that the wireless capability is off. The theory is that my wireless transmission could fool the aircraft’s sophisticated navigation system and autopilot into doing something wrong.

Of course, Air Canada doesn’t need my help to screw up. Last year an Air Canada pilot woke up from his approved nap over the Atlantic on a night flight much like is one, saw Venus, thought it was a light of a nearby aircraft and took emergency avoidance action which put 16 people into hospital on arrival. It was reported as severe turbulence (which it was) but implied that it was weather (which it wasn’t).

I had that experience in a car many years ago. We, a group of RCAF pilot trainees, were driving at night from Claresholm to Calgary at night on a long straight highway. I was asleep sitting beside the driver. I woke up and realized (I saw) that there a vehicle head-on to us and closing fast. I grabbed the steering wheel to pull it to the right. Fortunately, the driver was awake and alert and held on to the wheel. He was not happy with me.

We now know what happens in these situations. There is a part of the brain, the amygdala, part of the limbic system, which gets the message about threats faster than the conscious part of the brain. (It is part of the ancient mammalian survival system – you don’t have to know exactly what it is if it appears to be a threat). I would guess that the Air Canada pilot’s reaction was the same as mine – an immediate response, even before thinking about it, to an apparent threat.

I am traveling on Aeroplan points and, since I have quite a few of them, I am in business class. That means that I am sitting in a little comfortable pod, just big enough for one but with every comfort known to man. One of the comforts is that the seat reclines fully into a bed, so I will get a few hours of good sleep before we arrive in Paris in the morning. We lose 6 hours on the flight, so it won’t be a full 8 hours of sleep, but enough to allow me to get quickly over the inevitable jet lag.

The pod has a real downside, in that each passenger is effectively isolated from every other passenger. Since the plot is to sleep, that is not a problem for this flight, but since l often like to chat with interesting people, it could be a problem under different conditions.

The food in this class is excellent. There was an appetizer, then a salad, then four choices for a main course: grilled AAA beef tenderloin, roasted chicken, grilled sea bass or Porcini mushroom and ricotta ravioli. each was accompanied by wonderful options. The sea bass, which I had, was offered with fingerling potatoes, grilled vegetables and cherry tomatoes. I passed on dessert; an apple, blueberry, strawberry and rhubarb streusel tart, not because I didn’t want it but because I was tired and wanted to sleep. I can’t imagine and don’t want to know what they had in steerage.