Category: Arles

“Stay the Course” ~ May 22, 2016

  • Sunday, May 22, 2016
  • Day 22 (Day 19 Camino)
  • Baziège
  • Distance: 14 miles (100% tarmac) 280 total miles
  • Ascent 474 feet and descent 551 feet
  • Time: 7 hours
  • Weather: 50-60 degrees, 20 cloudy than heavy rain

Weigh the differences. Stay on The Way walking through beautiful evolving French countryside for longer miles or stay along the Canal Du Midi dodging cyclists and seeing a good deal of sameness in shorter mileage. Rain dictated walking along the canal.

In 1681, it took 12,000 workers 14 years to build the canal.

  1. Toward Baziège
  2. Toward Baziège
  3. Toward Baziège

Plane Trees ~ May 21, 2016

  • Saturday, May 21, 2016
  • Day 21 (Day 18 Camino)
  • Avignonet-Lauragais
  • Distance: 20 miles (5% tarmac) 266 total miles
  • Ascent 616 feet and descent 683 feet
  • Time: 9 1/4 hours
  • Weather: 50-60 degrees, 20 MPH winds with blue skies

Joyful arrival of a café at a historic mill. I had the sweetest strawberry well placed on a perfect brownie.

The park had an avenue of “Plane” trees over a hundred years old. In some places I see these trees taged and consecutively numbered.

  1. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais – Walkway at Mill
  2. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais – Walkway at Mill
  3. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais – Mill

Thomas Jefferson ~ May 21, 2016

  • Saturday, May 21, 2016
  • Day 21 (Day 18 Camino)
  • Avignonet-Lauragais
  • Distance: 20 miles (5% tarmac) 266 total milesAscent 616 feet and descent 683 feetTime: 9 1/4 hours
  • Weather: 50-60 degrees, 20 MPH winds with blue skies

Thomas Jefferson’s tribute along the Canal du Midi. It reads…

13 April 1743 in Shadwell, VA in Virginia 4 July 1826 in Monticello in Virginia

SYMBOL OF THE FRANCO-AMERICAN FRIENDSHIP

AMBASSADOR OF THE USA IN FRANCE 1785-1789

3RD PRESIDENT OF THE USA 1801-180

MAIN AUTHOR OF THE AMERICAN DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE 4 JULY 1776. LOVER OF FRANCE, HE TRAVELLED IN OUR LAND AND PROMOTED IN THE USA OUR ARCHITECTURAL PATRIMONY, OUR LAND, OUR CULTURE, A HUMANIST, HE SHARED OUR VALUES OF LIBERTY, WITH HIS FRIEND LA FAYETTE HE PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN THE DRAFT OF THE FRENCH CONSTITUTION AND THE DECLARATION OF THE RIGHTS OF MAN AND OF THE CITIZEN IN 1789.

1789 – 2009
A BRIDGE FOR LIBERTY

220TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

  1. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais
  2. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais
  3. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais


Long, Flat Miles ~ May 21, 2016

  • Saturday, May 21, 2016
  • Day 21 (Day 18 Camino)
  • Avignonet-Lauragais
  • Distance: 20 miles (5% tarmac) 266 total miles
  • Ascent 616 feet and descent 683 feet
  • Time: 9 1/4 hours
  • Weather: 50-60 degrees, 20 MPH winds with blue skies

Seven hours we walk along the canal, flat with dry dirt under feet.

  1. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais
  2. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais
  3. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais

Less on More ~ May 21, 2016

  • Saturday, May 21, 2016
  • Day 21 (Day 18 Camino)
  • Avignonet-Lauragais
  • Distance: 20 miles (5% tarmac) 266 total miles
  • Ascent 616 feet and descent 683 feet
  • Time: 9 1/4 hours
  • Weather: 50-60 degrees, 20 MPH winds with blue skies

I have done less miles on more food.

Today I will be satisfied with yesterday’s baguette, the last of Anne’s M&M’s, and dried apricots. Nothing by which to feed oneself in this French countryside but beauty.

  1. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais – Distant snow covered Pyrenesse Mountains
  2. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais
  3. Toward Avignonet-Lauragais – Last hill to Gîte…no one said it would be easy.

Respite ~ May 20, 2016

  • Friday, May 20, 2016
  • Day 20 (Day 17 Camino)
  • Dreuilhe (Between Revel and Lac de Lenclas)
  • Distance: 15 miles (90% tarmac) 246 total miles
  • Ascent 964 feet and descent 937 feet
  • Time: 7 1/2 hours
  • Weather: 50-60 degrees, cloudy turning blue skies

Respite from walking…coffee at a café, backpack off, laundry drying on the line; albeit, guarded by geese.

  1. Toward Dreuilhe – Revel
  2. Toward Dreuilhe – Revel
  3. Dreuilhe – Chambre d’Hôtel la Métairie de Dreuilhe


Half-Timbered ~ May 20, 2016

  • Friday, May 20, 2016
  • Day 20 (Day 17 Camino)
  • Dreuilhe (Between Revel and Lac de Lenclas)
  • Distance: 15 miles (90% tarmac) 246 total miles
  • Ascent 964 feet and descent 937 feet
  • Time: 7 1/2 hours
  • Weather: 50-60 degrees, cloudy turning blue skies

Half-Timbered dwellings.

  1. Toward Dreuilhe – Half-timbered houses of Revel
  2. Toward Dreuilhe – Half-timbered houses of Revel
  3. Toward Dreuilhe – Half-timbered houses of Revel


Becoming ~ May 20, 2016 

  • Friday, May 20, 2016
  • Day 20 (Day 17 Camino)
  • Dreuilhe (Between Revel and Lac de Lenclas)
  • Distance: 15 miles (90% tarmac) 246 total miles
  • Ascent 964 feet and descent 937 feet
  • Time: 7 1/2 hours
  • Weather: 50-60 degrees, cloudy turning blue skies

Having walked for weeks, I have become a distance walker. My legs mindlessly move like the swing of a metronome. My walking poles have evolved into an extra set of legs. Once hoisted on my back, my backpack feels more like an appendage than an anchor.

  1. Toward Dreuilhe
  2. Toward Dreuilhe
  3. Dreuilhe

Universal Language ~ May 19, 2016

  • Thursday, May 19, 2016
  • Day 19 (Day 16 Camino)
  • Dourgne
  • Distance: 12 1/2 miles (85% tarmac) 231 total miles
  • Ascent 1,088 feet and descent 943 feet
  • Time: 6 hours
  • Weather: 50-60 degrees, cloudy and few drizzles

Dining in silence, the universal language. One doesn’t talk while dining at a monastery.

  1. Dourgne – Abbaye Saint-Scholastique
  2. Dourgne – Abbaye Saint-Scholastique
  3. Dourgne – Monastère Abbaye Saint-Benoît

Respit ~ May 19, 2016

  • Thursday, May 19, 2016
  • Day 19 (Day 16 Camino)
  • Dourgne
  • Distance: 12 1/2 miles (85% tarmac) 231 total miles
  • Ascent 1088 feet and descent 943 feet
  • Time: 6 hours
  • Weather: 50-60 degrees, cloudy and few drizzles

Even as quiet as a long walk may be, respite at an Abbey brings welcomed silence.

  1. Towards Dourgne
  2. Dourgne – Abbaye Saint-Benoît Hôtellerie du Monastère
  3. Dourgne – Abbaye Saint-Benoît Hôtellerie du Monastère