Day 1: Paris to Le Puy-en-Velay

On May 12th, Annie Smart and Dave Hilditch began a 12 day 205 km backpacking pilgrimage on the French Chemin de St. Jacques, from le Puy-en-Velay to Conques.
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This blog is a day-by-day account of their journey.

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Day One: Paris to Le Puy.

the cloister at Seminaire St Georges

The trip from Paris to Le Puy-en-Velay was multi-staged. Take the Metro to the Gare de Lyon. Take the TGV to Lyon. Then run run run to make our connection with a slower train going to Firminy. Standing room only. Then in Firminy get a bus to le Puy. This last part of the trip was a delightful ride through beautiful hilly countryside on narrow roads. Then we slogged up the hill toward the Cathedral looking for our Gite, the Grande Seminaire St Georges.

This turned out to be a very cool, 18th century building (with some older parts embedded) with many    rooms. Ours had a nice view of     the cloister. You can see the Red Virgin as you leave the building.

We obtained our creantiales at the cathedral, a "pilgrim passport" which gets stamped on every stage of the journey, and provides you with cheaper pilgrim rates  at Gites. We found the path mark for the start of the Chemin and the famous little statue of St Jacques perched nearby, had a delicious demi on the busy main street, and headed back for dinner.

Our nice digs at St Georges

Dinner at the Gites was very interesting. A long table with about 40 people seated, cafateria style, mostly in their 60s. Dinner was first soup, then lentils with ham and tomatoes, and sausages. Then cheese and apples. An older man (perhaps the Pere Bernard Dave corresponded with via email) strode up and down behind us encouraging us to eat up -- we would need it! On one side of us was a Parisian couple, on the other side were Italians. French was definitely the language spoken, and Annie had a delightful chat with a number of people, including "Howling Wolf" one of two brothers heading out on the Chemin Robert Louis Stephenson. What fun.  Dave did a lot of listening. Then back to our rooms by 8:30pm, as we readied for our departure the next morning.