Come to the Library on Thursday May 26th at 7:00 pm for a talk and slide show on walking the French Camino.
John Mundy recently returned from a 500km walk along an old medieval pilgrimage route from Le Puy en Velay in southern France to the French-Spanish border.
Here is his summary of the trip:
In March and April of this year I walked the GR 65 long distance trail in Southern France. The trail follows part of an ancient medieval pilgrimage route across Southern France and links to the well-known pilgrimage route across Northern Spain to Santiago de Compostela. The countryside was beautiful and very diverse with cliff walks, river valleys, farming country, forests and mountain foothills. There were many pretty french villages and towns.
Although I walked alone, I made friends. One of the unexpected delights of the trip was the fellowship amongst the walkers. I slept in ‘gites’, which are hostels that cater to walkers and which usually offer both breakfast and a good dinner, served each evening at 7:30 sharp. Everyone would sit together at a big table to share a meal and talk about their day.
My French got a work-out. During the first three weeks of my walk I hardly heard a word of English. The French, Belgians and Quebecers that I met were very kind to me and helped me in many ways.
I was gone for almost 6 weeks and spent 33 days on the trail. I’d like to share with whoever might be interested a short slide presentation of my walk.
