Badass Name For A Town

Dax. Very scenic as well but you'll have to take my word for it since I had to leave my camera (phone) back at the O Petit Hotel so it could absorb the 1.8gb final episode if BB. 

I did everything I could think of that didn't require a smart phone. Walked around a lot, got my 'passport' stamped, finished reading "Wild", and even got my hair cut. Getting a haircut in France is easy. One-word easy and for me that word is "trois". The universal clipper language makes it very easy. She asked what to do with the top (bald part) of my head and I gestured "whatever you want". I haven't taken a good look at it yet but walking back to O Petit Hotel I could see the shadows cast by the street lights behind me. I seem to have a tuft of hair in the center-front of my head that's pretty well established and she must've left it intact because the shadows make me look like a unicorn. So I got a badass unicorn haircut in Dax. 

Anyhow, 1.2gb downloaded so far. Only 600mb left. I should be good to go in about 4 hours. Till then I'm taking a nap. 

In Onesse et Laharie, No Food On Sundays

So I'm at the camp ground in my trailer home and although it does have a church, that's about all there is here. 

The trailer usually costs 40e but for pilgrims it's only 10!  The campground has a little snack bar that sells pizza but its closed. The father and son who work here both told me its closed on Sundays but about an hour ago the matron of the place stopped by to say that she'd injured her arm and couldn't make pizzas today. She sis however take me over to the snack bar and gave me a bag of pasta, some butter, bread, a couple of eggs, an ice cream cone, and 2 beers!!

No charge for the bread , pasta, butter and eggs. 6e for the ice cream cone and beer. I love this place. 

From here I really have to design not only my route, but tomorrows destination as well. The official destination, a village called Taller has a pilgrim house that you can get into by entering a code into a digital lock. You get the code at the bar next to the house. However my guide book explains that the the bar is closed on Mondays - no further explanation. 

I've had enough of this super flat terrain and perfectly straight roads. Over the past two days I've probably walked 20 km on the service road next to a superhighway. On the upside, I've passed two 7.50e tollbooths so I somehow feel 15e ahead of the game!

Finally Wearing A Shell

And not one of those store bought shells they sell at gift shops either. 

I never did capture a live clam this past summer but I did find a lot of scallop shells. One of them had a hole in the perfect place to tie it to my pack. Yesterday I finally got a string to do the attaching with - and not one of those store bought strings either!  This is a genuine used French shoelace I found by the side of an industrial road.  Now that "The Way" is showing in France, maybe someone in this part of the country will know what it means. 

I can't wait to get out of this region. I think the only people who travel through here are tractor and fertilizer salesmen so lodging is expensive. 

Tonight I'll be in a place called Onesse et Leharie. I think I've found a campground where I can rent an RV for the night. The guy on the phone might have though I want to park my own RV there for the night, in which case I'm sol. Staying in an RV on the day of the BB series finale sounds aprapo though, right?

I d

Not Fair!

Maybe I mean too fair. Here's how this restaurant charges for their house wine. A clear bottle with markings for each increment. 

- un peu (18cl)

- beaucoup (25cl)

- passionement (50cl)

- a la folie (75cl)

I don't know how they charge for amounts between the lines but just in case it's rounded to the greater amount, once I pass beaucoup I'm going straight for passionement!

Nearing A New Blog Map Solution?

The other day Tara complained that the lack of a mapping component to this blog is hard to deal with. So I've spent the last hour or so trying to come up with a solution and feel so close yet so far. 

The iPhone Photos app has a fantastic feature that when you hit the "Places" icon you get a map of where all of your pictures were taken. Very cool, right?  So now I'm trying to figure out how to share it with you guys. 

A Town That Doesn't Even Have A Church!

That's where I am alright. Le Muret. I'm in the thick of the Landes region and although I know I've only been in it for two days and I know it can't go on forever, it's pretty desolate. 

Without a church there isn't much to take pictures of out here.  The final few kms were along this lovely trail. Le Muret is right on the other side of this superhighway - about a half a km away but Gomie kept insisting the only way to get to the other side was to keep going another 3km to the next exit, then come back up 3km. That would have been over an hour. Luckily, 200 or 300 meters after this picture there is a construction tunnel under the highway. Imagine the thrill it was for me to see Gomie go from "Le Muret - 1 hour, 12 minutes" to "Le Muret - 10 minutes"!

Barp (Excusee Moi!)

I'm in the town of Le Barp, around 30km south of Bordeaux. As you may know already I'm not much of a hot weather person so I didn't much enjoy today's trek out of Bordeaux. It was around 90 degrees by 1pm and tedious. 

There were some grapes in the first couple of hours but then I apparently exited the Gironde region and entered Landes. The problem with Landes is that it's one if those places that's totally flat and there's no shade. For the most part the walking route is at least unpaved, but some of the paths go completely straight for more than five km. 

All of the regular rooms at the local flop house were booked so I had to pony up an extra 10e for the premium room. It has THREE AIR CONDITIONERS and a heated towel rack, which is the only thing that will dry my super socks overnight after they're washed. 

This is the view from the pool cabana entrance to the sitting room (note walking stick). Bedroom to the left, bathroom to the right. 

A Restful Day

I wasn't able to load yesterday's post until this morning due to a wifi conflict between the blogging software and downloading the latest episode of Breaking Bad. It took three tries but after managing to keep the connection alive for seven hours, I'm pleased to report that the download was successful and I'm all up to date!  

Back in the day, before Bordeaux was the the huge metropolis it is now, the pilgrimage route had stops in two different neighborhoods, Bouscat and Gradignan. I decided to stay for two nights at a budget hotel between the two in the center of town. 

It looks like I have one more day in wine country before entering the Landes region, which is the largest coastal pine forest in Europe and the last region before Basque country.  It goes on for five or six days and it has a reputation for being expensive and tedious. 

I walked around town a bit today but wasnt able to take any pictures since my phone was occupied with the BB download. But I do have this picture of a very handsome looking Donkey that I took a couple of days ago. 

It shared a pasture with two other, shaggy looking donkeys. They were too far away for me to get a good shot of them but when I got to my day's destination and read about it online I found out that they're actually a very rare, endangered breed of donkeys. I'm not sure if this is one of them (without the shag) but still - a damn nice looking donkey, right?  Actually looks like a horse except for the ears. 

Looks Like a Nice Place, Right?

It isn't. Even though its on the water and the gateway to the Gironde region (which so far is pretty spectacular) the town of Blaye would be best experienced this way:  find out when the ferry leaves for Lemarque and arrange to arrive in Blaye 15 minutes beforehand. 

As I write this post, episode 6, season 6 of Breaking Bad is downloading to my phone. The place that I stayed at in Blaye  last night advertised free wifi. When I got there I found out that wifi was only available for devices running WINDOWS! No iPhones or iPads, no Samsung galaxies, no androids of any kind - just windows. Breakfast this morning was 7.5e and was a cup of coffee, a glass of oj and yesterday's bread. 

The ferry out the Charente Marine region to the Gironde was glorious, and the walk to Bordeaux was great too. Vineyards all over the place. Zero corn. Zero sunflowers. All red grapes. The bunched are perfectly formed but it looks to me like they have a couple more weeks until they're ready to be picked and stomped. 

The wineries are hearing up though. This place seemed to be power washing all of their equipment and had just received this supply of wine bottles. 

Eighty Percent Grapes

Happy Birthday Mammy!

Every single person walking the "Tours" route seems to have bunched up onto the same schedule. Last night there were five of us in the 'pilgrim house'. So many of the places to stay along the way are closed for good, closed for September, for Sundays, etc that five at a time maxes out the capacity of a lot of towns along the way.*

Today's stage was 17km and tomorrow's 20km. The other four from last night snagged all the spots 17km out from Mirambeau so I kept going though tomorrow's stage and am now in Blaye. 

I don't think Its technically Bordeaux until I cross the Gironde river tomorrow but it is unambiguously wine country. If things go as planned ill be in the city of Bordeaux tomorrow afternoon. 

* The movie "The Way" opens for the first time in France on Wednesday. The five of us from last night might all go see it in Bordeaux!

Hotels Are Closed on Sundays!

Only in France. But in there defense they're mostly Mom & Pop operations so I guess they need an occasional day off. 

I'm staying in one of the barracks-like refuges tonight. It was impossible to find because Gomie had never heard of it. 

There are four other people here, all French but two of them are younger than me!  

My cold is pretty much completely gone and my body is getting acclimated to the the walking thing pretty well. The rest of the gang here is quite impressed with my blisters. I can't believe none of you emailed me for pictures!  Here's a picture  that might be more disturbing that blister photos. The French seem to have a different sidekick for Pinocchio than we do!

Making a Dent

After almost two weeks I'm close to halfway through the French part of this Camino. 

The route today was from Saintes to Pons which ended up being a little over six hours. The first couple of hours were fantastic - there was a fog over the Charente river on the way out of Saintes that kept it nice and cool

I know I'm jinxing myself by saying this but I haven't seen any evidence of train line construction in four or five days now. I've gotten used to rolling my own route with the help of my beloved Google Maps. From now on (in memory of Steve Gomez, Breaking Bad) I'll be referring to Google Maps as "Gomie". 

So I told Gomie I'd like to take a more northerly route after a few km walking along the river. He led us up a nice quiet farm road and across a highway to the outskirts of a little village that had an old sign pointing towards the "Theatre Romanaise". It didn't say how far but I rolled the dice and walked a few hundred meters out of the way and was not disappointed. Walking between cornfields, off the path to the left was a small rise in the landscape with some trees around it. I went over to explore and sure enough, the remains of an ancient amphitheater. If you look closely at the picture you can see the separate entrances at the top. I walked around it and on the other side was a pile of ancient roman rubble that must have been the gate, or hot dog stand. 

Anyway it was well worth walking a km out of my way to see. 

So now I'm in Pons, a terrific little mid evil  town with intact ramparts and a "donjon", which I think was a watch tower. 

Dinner here at the Hotel Bordeaux is supposed to be very good. It's listed in the Michelin guide and is only 13e for two courses. It doesn't start till 7:30. I don't know if I can last that long. 

The Land of Good Eats

There are a lot of different possible courses in a French dinner, the main ones neing the entree (appetizer), plate (main course) and dessert. At some of the chambre d'hotes I've stayed at there has been an aperatif and soup before the entree and cheese before dessert.  Sometimes there's a digestif to finish it all off.  I'm in the city of Saintes this evening which is kind of like dessert in that it's directly between the towns of Roquefort to the north west and Cognac to the south east. 

A very attractive town that has been here since the hay day of the Roman era.  The city's double arch was built by Germanicus in 19AD as a tribute to his father Tiberius. If I recall correctly Germanicus was murdered by his 10 year old son, Caligula. 

I've taken at least 20 grams of vitamin C today but don't feel much better than yesterday. I didn't walk today but dont much like the place im staying so am determined to get back to it tomorrow. 

I know I'm suppose to starve this cold but being in this land of good eats, figure I'll go try and choke down some grub. 

Lots of History Around Here

I'm in the Charente-Maritime region now,  Specifically the town of St. Jean d'Angely. There's no direct evidence of the ocean but its pretty cold and there are an awful lot of seafood restaurants. 

I've had a cold for the past couple of days and today it seems a lot worse so its time to start popping some serious vitamin C. Tomorrow's destination is a pretty big city called Saintes and if I land in a good enough cheap enough place I might take Saturday off. 

The "official" camino organization is the Confraternity of St. James points out that this route is not well defined and that its largely up to pilgrims to design their own route. The combination of Google Maps and the Trip Advisor app are really coming in handy. GM gets me into town and TA's "point me there" gets me to the door. If I don't feel better tomorrow morning I'll be asking GM for the shortest route to Saintes without walking on the highway. 

The history around here ranges all the way from the roman era, through the Middle Ages and all the way up to WWII so there's lots of interesting historical layers to consider while walking around. A decent example of that is the Eglise St. Hillaire in Melle, which is an 11th century church with a relief sculpture of the emperor Constantine on the side. That's him on the horse. 

Aulnay's So Nice I'm Blogging It Twice

The hotel in town is called Hotel Donjon and its the best place I've stayed so far. 

I don't know how old it is but it's old and beautifully updated. It's also the cleanest place I've stayed in, and the lady who runs it cares more about her place than any "innkeeper" I've experienced so far. 

When I checked in she said I couldn't have dinner there because she needs a day's notice and only serves a couple of diners per night. She gave me the dining options in the town square (50 feet away).  There's a regular restaurant which is good, or the Internet cafe which is very good and her favorite. 

I had a salad that I thought only existed in Spain; romaine, tomatoes, cucumbers, asparagus, hard boiled egg, tuna and Swiss cheese to start, followed by an entrecôte with fries washed down with a 50cl carafe of chilled red wine and an espresso. All delicious. Total bill 21e. 

Long Haul to Aulnay

The book says its 32km from Melle to Aulnay but it took 9 hours and seemed longer. 

It rained all morning before clearing up to be a nice scattered cloudy, windy  day. There were some nice rolling hills which did wonders for the scenery and although I'm still in the sunflower/ corn belt there are finally some farm animals to enjoy!

BREAKING BAD SPOILER ALERT!  Skip to next paragraph to avoid!

My feet aren't anywhere near as bad as last time. I've got blisters on the bottom of both but there not swollen up "Botero feet" like I had most of the last trip. They are especially painful this evening and in memory of Hank I'd like to recall one of my favorite Hank & Marie exchanges - from when he was rehabbing from his run in with the Salamanca twins. 

Marie: "Remember Hank, pain is just weakness leaving your body."

Hank: "Wrong Marie. Pain is my foot in your ass!"

The two Canadians from a couple of days ago didn't walk today so that left me with Pascal. Remember when I said that when navigation is involved, four heads are better than one?  When Pascal's is involved one head is better than two. He constantly asks locals for tips on shortcuts, etc. and takes them as gospel. 12km from Aulnay he stopped at a house to refill his water bottle and came out insisting that I was leading us in the wrong direction. We had lost the waymarks but I found a great route on Google Maps that I KNEW was the best route. Sometimes GM serves up some gems. This post's photo is the road it sent me on- direct to Aulnay.

I got into town an hour ago. Haven't seen Pascal yet. 

Very Excited!

My Mammy says the most recent Breaking Bad is the best one ever. I'm all checked in to the digs in Melle, wifi works, episode downloaded. Here goes!

Damn That Was A Good Day!

Last night I told my pal Pascal that I'd meet him by the church in Lusignan to walk to Chenay. On my way there an "older than me" couple with backpacks were walking in the opposite direction and asked me if I was "the American". As it turned out they (Louise and Greg) are Canadians living in Florida and we all walked to Chenay together. 

With four brains involved we managed to not get lost and spent a mere half km walking along the "interstate". Pascal is from Chatrre and is in the know about the in-season tasty treats growing along the side of the trail so we spent a good amount of time chomping down delicious blackberries, walnuts and even a couple of pears.  It took about six hours to get here and when we did it turned out that the town's only hotel had been shut down. Pascal had already made a reservation at a "Chambre D'hôte" and called it to see if the rest of us could stay as well, and so here we all are. 

The first thing the lady of the house asked us was if we wanted her to do our laundry!!  All of a sudden I'm awash in clean dry clothes!

I forgot how fantastic the meals can be at the Cd'Hs. This was one for the ages. Potato soup -> beet salad, carrot salad, and freshly picked sliced tomatoes with chopped onions -> sliced beef with buttery potatoes -> assortment of local cheeses -> brownies with a concoction of melted caramel ice cream on top. To top it off the man of the house went over to a ten gallon bottle of clear liquid and poured some shots. Only the host,  another guest (a wine merchant who was there with his college-student daughter) and I accepted. The rest of them looked at me mischievously and asked if I knew what it was. "Firewater!  Aguardiente!  GRAPPA!"  They seemed duly impressed that an American was so well indoctrinated to fine European digestifs. I had the awesome privilege of teaching the college how to drink her first sip of grappa. "Deep breath, take a sip, exhale slowly". I think she liked it. 

Tomorrow, off to Melle. 

I Hope France Enjoys Its New LGV

Navigating this route is really tricky, especially for a non French speaker. I have the best guidebook and can make out a lot of it but there's a lot of nuance in navigation that I don't understand. There are waymarks all over the Via Turonensis but the problem is that France is building a new LGV (Ligne Tres Vitessse - high speed train line) that has discombobulated the route. Apparently it runs on pretty much the same path as the chemin (Camino). I don't know for how long but so far it's everywhere I've been. Many of the Chemin waymarks lead directly into these construction zones. Once it's finished in 2015 the route will probably be stabilized but till then the best option is sometimes pretty bad - walking on the side of highways. Today about 7 of the 30 km were on the D611. 

Before I get off the topic of trains, have I said how much I love French trains?  Even the regular trains are way better and faster than even the Acela. The photo is of the regular ( non high speed) train I took from Orleans to Tours. 

I'm in a town called Lusignan this eve staying at another awesomely named hotel. Le Chapeau Rouge (Red Hat). There's a big purple hat painted on the front, it doesn't open for check-in till 6PM and they don't serve dinner on Sundays. Still I'm happy to call it home for the evening. I'm off to find some food. 

I'll Look Back At This and Laugh

Maybe it was because I felt guilty for taking the Very Fast Donkey from Chatelleraut to Poitiers but although I walked over seven hours today I don't think I ever made it out of Poitiers. 

Finding the walking route out of cities is always hard and even more so when it's raining. I have one guide book and one smart phone to help me navigate and neither are waterproof. It was pouring in Poitiers when I left but I vaguely remembered some of the landmarks to look for on my way out of town; I couldn't find any of them. 

I went to the Tourist Office where the nice lady drew a path on a map, but being from a city that's laid out as a grid, as soon as I left the TO, everything seemed kittywampus. I tried a couple of logical seeming routes but none lead to anything that gave me confidence I was on the right trail. 

Finally, an hour and a half after I left the hotel I saw a couple of cyclists go down a road that seemed to run south. I followed them across a bridge and saw what I thought I was looking for; a waymark painted on a telephone pole. It pointed me to a wooded path. It had to be the right way to go. The waymark was a little different than the ones before Poitiers. It seemed to be a yellow stripe over a red one instead of the usual white over red. After a couple of hours I came to a big chain linked gate with a sign that said "closed weekdays" but since it was a Saturday the gate was open and I was free to proceed. It was, of course a construction site for the new high speed train line from Tours to Bordeaux. A km later I exited the site and came upon a paved road with a sign pointing to a village. It was still pouring with rain but there was a partially sheltered bus stop so I took the opportunity to check out my guide book. The only village with that name was about ten km north - back towards Chatelleraut!  In need of a second opinion I took out the phone and consulted Google Maps. It confirmed that I was indeed headed in the wrong direction. Since it was after 1PM I decided to cut my losses and retreat back to Poitiers. I finally made it back to town at around 4PM and got a room at the Ibis Budget hotel next to the train station.  I'd stopped into the station to see if I could catch a train to a friendlier walking environment and learned that from Poitiers I could go anywhere I wanted. My non store bought walking stick was saturated with rain so I left it at the entrance to the station and proceeded to the hotel. 

After a good nights sleep I decided to try walking out of there again, this time using Google Maps to direct me to the first little village that would have the proper way marking. My stick was still where I left it and had dried out from the night before. 

The walk to Lusignan was un-eventful and I did learn a couple of valuable lessons:  Google Maps is a savior, and a yellow over red waymark means its a local, circular route. 

Map of the Tours Route

Fast Forward

If the Le Puy route was Skyline Drive, the Tours route would be the Jersey Turnpike. 

the last couple of days have been an awful lot of walking by the side of busy roads. Last night I was in a town called Des Ormes; a depressed little burg surrounded by cornfields and dead sunflowers. I stayed an elegantly named place called "Hotel Cheval Blanc" (White Horse Hotel) which was comically bad except for the nice funny lady, Isabel who ran it. My room had a king and a queen sized bed and for some reason I chose the queen size to sleep in. At around 3:30am I realized that the pillow smelled like methlamine (or, as Breaking Bad fans might know, cat piss) so I moved to the king size. 

It was 43e for the room, dinner and this morning's breakfast. Isabel was the only staff present and went home at 4:30. Dinner was left in the fridge and there was a microwave to zap it. BUT LET ME TELL YOU it was PHENOMENAL!  Carrot salad, mushroom salad, cucumber salad and an off-the-charts delicious beets and garlic salad for cold starters followed by a succulent stew of super tender beef and carrots. Breakfast was served by Isabel herself and consisted of a croissant (you can't get a bad croissant in this country) and coffee. 

The walking destination was a big town called Chatelleraut. If you ever get a chance to go there, for God's sake DON'T!  It's a huge sprawling industrial town and my best description of is San Antonio meets East Berlin. The walk there itself was six hours on a narrow busy road with a speed limit of 70km/h (so everybody drove 85). When I say "on a narrow busy road" I don't mean a path beside it, or the shoulder of it. I mean on it. Finally upon reaching city limits the trail passes through an industrial park, then within meters of the sewage treatment plant. 

Eventually I made it to the Tourist Office which was staffed by a couple of very nice, competent women who explained that there were two places to stay within 3km of the trail; a 3 star hotel for e100 or a 0 (zero!) star hotel for e50. I made the obvious choice to fast forward to the next stop and asked directions to the train station. 

E6.8 and a half hour later I arrived here. The Best Western hotel in central Poitiers - for e50!  I love it here and don't want to ever leave. Supposedly the head of John the Baptist is somewhere in town so I probably ought to spend tomorrow checking it out, right?

I also have a pretty unique blister on the ball of my left foot. I think it's a blood blister covered by a regular blister. Email me if you want a picture of it. 

Anyhow, the next stop is a town called Coulombiers. 

PS the picture on this post is a very cool piece of municipal artwork from a pretty little town I walked though yesterday. It's cut from a single piece of rusted sheet metal over white marble. Cool, huh?

The Camino Provided Me With A Stick

Most trekkers seem to use collapsible titanium/graphite trekking poles, but aside from a stovepipe hat with a buckle in front nothing says "pilgrim" like an old fashioned wooden walking stick like Martin Sheen and Uncle Bob used on the Camino. 

I wasted a half day looking for one of those, first in Orleans and then in Tours. Eventually I set out without one but the fact is that to farm dogs a walker without a stick looks like a big two-legged Beggin Strip. 

When I remembered seeing stickless Isabel get bit by a dog last spring I immediately started looking around on the ground for something to carry. Within 30 seconds I found this gem. Can you believe it?

It's the perfect length, and dry and light without being brittle. The only problem with it is that it has a crack down the middle; nothing that a little duct tape couldn't fix - and imagine how badass it would look with a little duct tape. 

For e12, Damn The Bedbugs!

So I'm in St. Maure de Touraine. A little Agro town with two hotels. The two star hotel (40E) was full and the three star was 100E. 

Once again the lady at the tourist office came through and handed me a key to the pilgrim house for 12E. Kind of dingy with no sheets and 2 sets of bunk beds in a single room.  There are three of us here and since I was second I have a lower bunk. 

The president of the Camino organization for the Touraine region lives in town and stopped by. He gave his spiel twice; once for me in English and the other for the two Frenchmen. To the French guys I heard him say The Way (blah blah blah) Martin Sheen. He then explained that he had told the town government about the movie and arranged a showing of it in French to anyone in the tourist business who wanted to see it. He was psyched that 350 people showed up. Only 50 people live in this village but Touraine is the region of Tours so he thinks it really got them into the Camino spirit. 

A few years ago I would have referred to my two roommates as old guys but I'll just call them older than me. They don't know each other but are both  married but their wives don't like to walk. One of them brought a pizza, the other found a can of lentils & sausages (franks & beans) and I got some wine - so we feasted on that. 

I'm just figuring out this new blog platform and am trying not to upload photos unless there's wifi but here's a picture of the gang. The guy in the doorway is the "care taker" of the place and the one sitting down is the Camino association president. 

. Also hoping there's a map feature like the last one. It's google so I suspect there is one. 

Next stop is another little town called Ormes. 

Day 1: Out of Tours and Very Lost

The only store that might have sold walking sticks didn't open till ten so I knew I was going to get a late start. It ends up that they didnt have them so I was SOL. 

I thought I memorized the map that the tourist office lady drew for me but apparently I was mistaken. I wandered around for an hour before going back to square one and precisely following her instructions. After another hour I was out of Tours (it's a big city!) and on the trail. The first couple of km were along the Loire river - very pleasant. 

This part of France is all about Big Agro. The 24km route was almost exclusively paths between dead sunflower fields and live corn fields. There's something kind of depressing about a field of deal sunflowers drying out waiting for their seeds to be harvested. They're all dead facing east as if one morning they woke up to greet the dawn but just didn't have it in them. 

More depressing was the fact that I neglected to bring any water and the consequences of that bonehead maneuver. After 18km I saw a town that was a few hundred meters off of the trail, and a sign advertising the availability of water!  Delicious and refreshing as it was, it filled me with an inappropriate amount of self confidence in crafting an alternative route to my destination, Sorigny which was 8km away. I was walking about 4km/hr and after two hours there was no sign of that town so I broke out google maps and asked for directions to Sorigny. It was still 8km away. I didn't get there until 7:30 and the only hotel was full so I stayed at a little old lady's house (B&B) for 35 Euros. I missed dinner and was too tired to look for food so I laid down till this morning. Ugh. 

More Caminoing!

I'm back to the Camino. Figuring that two solid months will be a better overall experience I figured I'd reboot the whole thing rather than pick up in Pamplona where I left off. 

The Le Puy route that I took last time is the most popular in France. It's known for being somewhat "magical" and I'm on board with that assessment. On the other hand it's hard to believe that magic can repeat itself after 3 or 4 months so I considered taking another route - the Via Turonensis from Tours. I waffled over which route until Jill pointed out the prospect of another couple-week stretch living on Aligot (garlicky, cheesy mashed potatoes). Don't get me wrong, I love Aligot but figure France is a great big country (at least when you're walking it) so I'd give the Tours route a try. 

I'm two days into it and will try to start making regular posts. I started by flying into Madrid to visit Jill & Sandi and to pick up my backpack. We had a nice time and had a couple of amazing dishes; the bacon - mango salad at Laredo and the pulpo (octopus) at the newly remodeled "Juan's". We had a good meal at Stefano's as well but it was Italian so it didn't really count. 

I flew into Paris on Sunday and caught a Train to Orleans. I was thinking of starting there but the tourist office didn't give me the impression that they were that into the Camino. I couldn't even figure out where to the the Camino credential (passport). I'm glad I went though. It's an amazing city. Joan of Arc rescued it from the Brits and a thousand years earlier Clovis defeated none other than Attila the frickin Hun (I think). I stayed at a place with wifi and was able to download the latest breaking bad which I watched on the train to Tours on Monday. 

Hats off to the lady at the tourist office in Tours. She was way into the Camino and set me up with my credential and and a map of how to find the start of the trail.