Day 1 - Le Puy to Montbonnet. 18.49km
I started the day with all the other pilgrims, at Mass.
Not being religious or able to speak French, I didn’t really understand much of it. There was some singing, then I assume some praying, then the priest was asking people where they were from. There were mostly French pilgrims, of course, but also Canadian, someone from Sweden and another from South America.
Then the priest pushed a button, and these grates in the floor just opened up. I’d forgotten that this happened, and you’re supposed to walk through the floor to the stairs and out the special pilgrim gate. It was part of the pilgrim blessing. Next time, I will be prepared, but this time I went to the shop to purchase my shell, an obligatory totem of the pilgrim. Then I wandered back to my accommodation and had breakfast, before packing my bag, getting my first pilgrim stamp and heading out.
The owner of my accommodation had given me basic instructions on getting out onto the way, but first, I needed to buy a sandwich. And of course I bought a pain au chocolat. Then left Le Puy behind me. I was a little sad to leave – I had not given myself enough time in the village. I would have liked to stay a whole day, not just an afternoon… next time.
The walk out of Le Puy went straight up a hill – talk about a trial by fire! Panting and puffing up the hill, we ended up getting out of the village and outskirts and out into the countryside.
The trail markers were everywhere, so easy to know which direction to go in.
At around 11am, I stopped to have my pastry. I met Cecilia, who had taken a photo of me sitting and eating it because I looked so peaceful. She came up to me to show me the photo. She was the pilgrim from Sweden and spoke very good English.
I walked through a forested area, with mossy green rocks, then through a village. There was a dog hanging around and he just started walking with me, seeming content to just hang around. He was very friendly.
He left me at the next village, which was where I started to think about eating my lunch. Being midday, all the best spots were taken, however, and I ended up sitting on a bench on the way out of town. It was very close to the path so lots of people walked past as I ate.
It was then time to find somewhere to pee, and I ended up in a corn field, hiding amongst the stalks!
I came upon a really nice church, so of course I went to have a look, then entered the village of Montbonnet.
I was a bit early, the gites generally don’t open until 3-4pm. There was a bit of a walk up the hill you could go to a viewpoint, but I got halfway up then decided I wasn’t that interested as I was tired and I was just using it to kill time. The gite I was going to had a garden that you could hang out in and wait til the gite opened at 3, so that’s what I did. I met a few people as they came in to wait, but everyone spoke French and no English so it was difficult.
The gite opened at 3 and this was my first introduction to gite life.
We were welcomed in by Mehdi, who spoke very good English. To stop the spread of bedbugs, we had to take our boots off, empty everything we needed out of our backpacks into tubs, and then take the tubs up to the bedrooms. Backpacks and shoes stayed downstairs, away from linens. I was the first one in so I had my choice of bed but it was a 6-bed room. Lots of people!
As the first one, I also was ready to go have a shower first so I went to do that. Oh it was so nice having a shower after about 17km of walking. It had been a warm day, not too hot, but I was still sweaty and gross.
I then went downstairs to wash my clothes in the sink, and hang them out to dry. Then it was time to sit around in the garden. I’d booked my first 5 days of gites so I didn’t need to book any for a few days like some other people had to, so I just started reading a book, sitting in the sun. They had a kettle too so I made a cuppa.
Dinner was ready at 7pm. We had soup (pumpkin), vegetarian lasagne (they gave me such a HUGE piece, I could barely finish it). I don’t remember what dessert was, sadly. Everyone was so nice at the table - I met my first little group of Camino buddies. Of course, I was more memorable to them as the Australian with the smiling face who couldn’t speak much French. But we all got by and it was a fun dinner.
Everyone went to bed about the same time. I took some melatonin to help me sleep, even though I was tired, but didn’t sleep well on account of someone snoring. And it was very hard trying to tiptoe out of the room to use the loo!
Gite l’Escole. 7/10. Good intro gite, very welcoming. Food was good, vegetarian. Not enough showers. English spoken