Camino Day 45 mardi 17/5/10 - Sunshine and metropolitan influences

Camino Day 45 mardi 17/5/10 - Sunshine and metropolitan influences


OK, St Leonard is certainly well worth visiting for the quality of the buildings in the medieval town, the church (despite its impact on me) and the food (beef!).

The afternoon and evening yesterday had warmed up and, after a thunderstorm during the night it cleared even more so we left in a crisp, bright morning light with blue skies framed by the narrow medieval streets. Emerge from the old town and the land just drops away to the river valley and the rolling countryside beyond.

We followed the chemin down to the river and crossed on the oldest bridge with a wonderful view of other, newer and higher bridges further down stream. Then, after climbing up to the main road we dodged heavy traffic for a bit then left it at a large factory where we began to steadily climb higher, through country paths and woodland, up to look back at St Leonard. Our little camera’s wide angled lens does not do such views justice but in the photo below you can just make out the spire of the church in the distance.

It was good walking country and the weather was the best we had enjoyed since before Vezelay.

The small villages we walked through were quite lovely but it soon became clear that these were not the remote hamlets we were used to. We were now a short drive out of Limoges and these were villages full of beautifully restored houses, with excellent gardens and, in the village we stopped at for a coffee the local primary school was busy and lively with children and young, stylishly dressed mothers. We were now in commuterville en France. It didn’t stop the café from being very charming and old-world. We would have gladly stopped here for lunch if we had been here on holiday.

The closer we got to the city the greater was its influence so, when we arrived at the little town with the supermarket on its outskirts it was clear that the whole town was in fine fettle with a brand new high school and college, a big library and the town’s summer fair had been an arts festival, too. The church we stopped at there was worth popping into with some fine medieval silverwork on display.

By now, Alison was wilting from the heat and we were glad of the cool shade before moving on.

The place we had our lunch was in a small park serving a new estate of houses, French style, with a wide range of styles and plot sizes mixed together. These would have been houses bought from little shops run by small house building companies. The local authority (or another developer) would have laid out the streets, brought in the services and put down the foundations in order to establish the basic footprints of the settlement. Some people would have bought a house design suited for their current and future needs. Others would have settled for a smaller house with options to expand at a later date (or dates). Se there were small houses on largish plots with couples or young families as well as full-grown ones with more mature families installed.

We noticed (as always) the gradual change as we entered the town. Even on a river path the numbers of people willing to exchange “Bonjours” rapidly declines to almost zero once you get into the suburbs. You have to wait until you are leaving the suburbs before you start exchanging greetings automatically with everyone you pass.

Still, it is good to be in a city! We needed to get things done here, like buy me some boots that don’t damage my feet (some hope) and get washing done, etc. Also do some research, relax, etc.

The hotel is a typical Etap but it is undergoing refurbishment so the ground floor common areas are stripped bare, the reception is a desk with a computer and phone on it and one of the lifts doesn’t work. You can only get wifi in the dining room which is a bit noisy during the day (drills, etc) but the mixture of people using the place is amazing – from students and foreign workers to posh business men and women. Also spotted a posh businessman with someone far too young etc to be anything other than his mistress – cheapskate using a hotel like this for his liaisons!

The hotel is some distance from the centre (but close to the very impressive station) so did a lot of hobbling back and forth into town - we both liked the city and will come back properly. You can get great ceramics here for very low prices, too!!

Getting into some French TV but saw the weirdest film – a sort of Carry on film meets ‘Allo ‘Allo in French with some English actors but all about a strange (obviously popular comedian) dashing back and forth across the Channel during the second world war as a resistance fighter but lots of slapstick and farce with bawdy bits etc….

Annoyed at the French insisting on dubbing over everything rather than sub-titling! Grrrr!


Camino Day 45 mardi 17/5/10 - St Leonard de Noblat to Limoges

We said goodbye to the other three at breakfast time – we may see Rene and Bernard again on the road or in Compostella but not Yves because he will go home from Perigueux. But we exchanged email and other details with Yves and Rene so may be in touch again.

We tried to leave the refugio ship-shape and then set off on the road. Consistent sunshine from the start but with some clouds and a nice breeze so never too hot. Yesterday when I looked at the map and guide, decided that trainers were appropriate but there was a lot of scrambling up hill bits early on and a lot of off-road stuff – luckily the trainers survived.

Beautiful walking again with hills, woods and vistas of distant hills, but lots of ups and only a bit down! We had a coffee in an auberge that was very rural – loos accessed through the kitchen – we went into the open church and found relics of two saints – Gauche and Fauche (???) and had given up on the idea of coffee when there it was...

And lunch time again there was an open church and then a Super U we reached before it closed, so had our picnic lunch across the road from it in a little park. When we set off after lunch we saw Patrick (from 2 days ago) in the distance and he stopped to talk to us before dashing off to secure accommodation in Limoges (with the Soeurs). We approached the centre of town from along the river Vienne with the cathedral rising above us – definitely the way to arrive – and over a Roman bridge...

In the cathedral a man saw us and invited us into the Sacristy to be “tamponed” (he stamped our books for us). And we met Patrick again and Angelika, the German woman who is walking with him and Robert now. We also rescued Angelika’s pilgrim guide which she had left in the cathedral and returned it to her at the convent refugio near by.

Tourist info office gave us a list of hotels and we settled on the cheap one in the guide. But when we got there (quite a long walk out in the wrong direction) it was shut until 6pm – it didn’t look great either. We tried phoning them but could not decipher the message on their recording and no point leaving a message.

So back to the tourist office (also to ask about Intersport shops for new boots for Ian). The tourist woman called the hotel but they only had a room without a shower. So we opted for the more expensive but en-suite Hotel Etap. And found Intersport, bought Ian’s boots (and socks) then had dinner in our room courtesy of MonoPrix.

Pilgrims head this way out of town

and emerge to find the road drops suddenly to the valley below

This way out over the oldest bridge has been walked by pilgrims for many hundreds of years

but the crossing was beautiful. This view in particular.

back on the Way with some sunshine!

You are supposed to look back at this point to see St Leonard.... The church spire is that thin pointy bit pushing up out of the trees which were not so prominent when the guidebook suggested looking back. Also my camera's very wide angle lens prevents me from doing it full justice!

these sheep desperately wanted out of their fold!

First really clear skies for weeks! and there is a cross in it, too..

It is now so warm the cattle are cooling themselves in the large pond.

Attractive little villages either completely renovated or well on the way, but still lovely.

After lunch we headed down the main road before finding our way onto the river path - bad signposting took us through an estate of flats and over large areas of uncut grass before we found the steps down to the river.

And then you turn the bend in the river and you get this view - a timeless way to enter a city as a pilgrim.

The bridge took us to the steep climb up to the cathedral

OK so the picture is a bit wonky but we were heading for the hotel on a busy road and it was a quick snap of an amazing structure

Camino Day 44 lundi 17/5/10 - Good food, celebrations and nightmares

We had a good breakfast and a fairly chaotic time sorting out the money before the guys headed back to their house to get started and we headed upstairs to sort ourselves out.

He headed out the way everyone had done along the paths behind the houses to where the lads had been staying as that is where the road out of town was. Robert was pleasant to walk with but it was hard to walk at the same pace for very long. A few miles were enough. His English was non-existent so I had enjoyed the space to speak with him without other people trying to translate or interpret. I understand a lot more than I can express and if left to my own devices I can do quite a lot of communicating. Thankfully, Alison is quite happy to leave me to do that for bits of a walk.

But when he hit the first really big hill his walking was not up to it and we knew we were going to part company – He couldn’t keep up and we could not see how we could keep walking at his pace… no problems, that’s the joy of walking with other walkers!

After crossing the bridge (the Google Map version of the river is very different from our view of the river) we climbed steeply up a narrow path through a dense forest.

As with so many other periods in the walk we took note of every footprint style we encountered in the mud and earth and tried to work out if we knew who was ahead of us. There were the usual variety of different types of prints including dogs of various sizes, what looked like deer and the wild boar that were ever more frequent in terms of their droppings and other markings.

We also were more aware of a different type of bird song. The cuckoos had gone and the skylarks from the open fields had disappeared too, replaced by the many small songbirds of the woods and the doves or wood pigeons.

Lots of wild flowers were starting to appear along the way, from tiny woodland things to massive orchids in ditches.

And the cattle seemed to grow in significance, too. Part of the enduring landscape, they were a regular feature of the day with herds wallowing in large, flooded sections of the field and strange feeding trailers left abandoned in the middle of the rich grass.

At one point we saw a whole series of modern baths left in a line across the otherwise perfect rural idyll of a sloping green pasture enclosed by wide sweeping wooded boundaries. Crazy, modern bathtubs left in an irregular line in a huge field of beef cattle….

And I imagined the farmer sitting in a small bar in a local village chatting to some “incomer” who was trying to refurbish a small, decrepit hotel. lamenting out loud about all of the old baths he/she would have to get rid of, the farmer would have said that he would take them – for nothing.

Thank goodness he didn’t take the loos too….. or maybe he did!!!

Some small notes to add And check out Placemarks 117-121.

1. We had lunch upstairs in a very nice little local restaurant (see Placemark 120) where we enjoyed fantastically good food at a very good price, the steak was great (local…) and there was a lively debate about beef cattle between (mainly) Yves and the waiter, fueled by my desire to have a steak bleu and Yves saying that his local beef breed has the name Bleu…. We got an extra carafe of wine out of that discussion!

2. The refuge was closed when we arrived. We waited after the meal and eventually the guy arrived to let us in. It was in a large building opposite the church and below part of the Music College, which was great as we overheard snippets of great music, too.

3. The church was a mixed thing. I was led to believe that St Leonard was the saint of prisoners and had been one himself but I did not feel comfortable in the place and felt tension and pain where the chains and wrist or leg iron were. It was not a good place for me for some reason.

4. The feeling persisted and grew when we entered the refuge and, despite the general good spirits, the shared meal and the efforts of people to celebrate I feel a growing sense of foreboding. I was particularly uncomfortable with our host despite him being very genial, generous and welcoming. Something constantly put me on my guard – it was either something I sensed in our host or in the place as it had not been present in our little group en route.

Our host was very generous and even brought us avocados, served us a very sweet and sickly Muscat wine (which Yves hated mainly, it seemed, because it was Greek and not French and I saw the reasoning there… but felt guilty, too) and cooked chips “without fat” on a very French machine that did not do the potatoes, chips or cooking any favours. I say French simply because of its eccentricity rather than any culinary values or failings.

All of this left me with a night and morning I would rather have avoided.

Our night in St Leonard (for me) was filled with horrific dreams. I dreamed of someone who was so nasty I can barely describe him. I might dare to recreate him in fiction but I cannot do more than skim the surface without feeling polluted and threatened by the thing that was present in my dreams and tried to invade my consciousness the next day. It took me until lunchtime to feel like I was winning and I still feel unpleasant when I think of it.

My nightmares that night were full of kidnapping and murder of an inexplicably cruel and violent nature and are so unlike my usual dreams, even nightmares, that it left me feeling invaded and hijacked in a way that still makes me feel out of sorts.

So, there you have it. I am still not clear on what caused it… my fatigue and vulnerability may have been involved, probably my overblown imagination, too.

Or something unpleasant I tuned into there, in that particular place. Someone from the past (or present…) who used to prey on lonely, vulnerable pilgrims – that is basically what I felt I had accidentally tuned into.

This was all so different from the Log Alison recorded – she had a great time and I am jealous … we spent more than just the following morning exploring this dichotomy.

Camino Day 44 lundi 17/5/10 - Billanges to St Leonard de Noblat

Last night, in an effort (failed) to warm up our bedroom, Francoise lit a wood burning stove. She left the door of the stove open to get it going and forgot about it resulting in smoke filling much of the house. So now pretty much everything we have smells of wood smoke.... the money issue was sorted by E10 from Yves and E15 from Bernard – which we paid back when we had lunch together in a restaurant in St Leonard. We let the other 3 leave first and, as we were setting off, Robert from yesterday was passing the end of the garden path so we walked with him to the first hill when it became clear that we would go faster.

The river was very wide and the bridge at Dognon is the biggest we have crossed so far(excluding the one we bussed over at the mouth of the Seine, of course). It was road walking up to the bridge then we took the chemin steeply up though woods then more woods and fields. But it began to rain and there was a very muddy section so when we reached the only town/village section on the route we switched to the road. The other three were in the cafe there but it felt too soon to stop so we pressed on – although we did look at the church.

By road it was only 9k from there to St Leonard so we arrived by 1pm! We had just visited the church when we saw the others – which is how we ended up having lunch together.

The man who let us into the refugio – Michel – wanted to help and talk (a lot).

He came back with beer and food and ate with us all – including onion soup (combined packet and added onions) from Rene, chips and avocadoes from Michel, cheese from Bernard, wine and bread from Yves and desert from Michel (again). We washed up!

Lovely refugio – spacious and warm and with a washing machine and tumble drier. This is perhaps our last night with the three as we will spend 2 nights in Limoges while they press on (?). I guess that is how the Camino works.

This was the view from the window of our room in Billages and the path we took out to the road.

and our bed in the gite

before the river the weather seemed vaguely promising

but the weather was really not getting better...

and just before we headed down the last hill to the river we encountered this odd circle of trees in a field -

we crossed this bridge.... the google street view images show a much smaller river than the one we encountered here

shortly after the bridge we left the road and went back on the chemin

I took a few pictures of these sheep and found the scene captivating for some reason.

but I will only inflict a couple on you!

a long climb through some woods was rewarded by this sight.

this was written by the base of the cross

we encountered a wealth of wild flowers which lifted our spirits even in periods of poor weather

even as we grew closer to St Leonard it looked like the weather was never going to turn. You can just see the church's very tall spire in the distance.

many of the barns (byres?) had these little plaques denoting prizes for bulls I think...

we also came across many 2nd world war memorials. I took pictures of quite a few. We were now far enough south to encounter the Melice as well as the Gestapo. These were semi-military right wing group of very nationalistic French who were anti both the communists and the Allied forces - French politics during the war were more than just a little complicated! And the source of many tragedies

we rested near here before gaining entrance to the town

this is what you encounter on your way in to St Leonard - next to the tourist info place and the pilgrim route to the church. Beef-wise, it says it all really...

And the route through the old town has the church spire beckoning you all the way...

Camino Day 43 dimanche 16/5/10 - Continuing the practice of putting one foot in front of the other

Last night we searched out and found the supermarket after having a drink in a bar where everyone (including the woman behind the bar) was English. We were still feeling odd about our conversations with the people in the bar as we wandered around the town trying to find the store. We are not used to people apart from ourselves talking in English and listening to their stories about living in France left us a little phased – quite a bit of “us and them” seems to exist in the conversations they have about their French neighbours, even when it is quite clear that they have committed themselves to living here and that they do have many French friends as well as their English circle… As I said, it was odd.

When we did find the supermarket we discovered that we would be passing it on our way out of town in the morning.

It was the combination of the shopping and the beer that left us short for today. We did expect to be able to find a bank (our guide lists places with “commerce” and we thought we would be OK) but things move on, change and services get lost as populations dwindle and wealth declines.

Alison and I discussed the evidence of personal rituals in a pilgrim’s behaviour. Rene has been on his walk for about as long as we have (he started in early April, too) and he is basically on his own so he has eaten many solitary meals while we have shared our time together fully.

His solitary experience shows in the methodical process of eating breakfast with all of his little containers and dishes/cup close by. The regular order of his eating, the way he puts things out and gathers them together to wash and store away. Similar traits in how he goes about cleaning, changing and packing.

Of course, we are in the groove, too, but we know that when one of us goes to have a shower or go to the loo the other is there to take care of things. On your own it is much harder. So it is good when you connect with others and find individuals and groups of pilgrims you know you can trust. It makes the time you spend walking with them comfortable interludes.

We have witnessed Rene relax into a good friendship with Yves and Bernard, which is really good as Yves will only go with Bernard for another week at the most then he will go home to Condom. Bernard have virtually no languages (apart from his native German) and so Rene, who speaks passable French, German and English as well as Dutch (and is learning Italian) will continue on with him.


Our walk was very pretty, as you can see from the pictures. We had a coffee in the small bar of a very nice restaurant that had a spectacular view across the landscape. We will have to come back and spend time here. The couple who lived in the 19th century house next door stamped our Pilgrim Passports as Alison said, and were very interested in our other stamps and our walk in general. The man has been stamping peoples credencials for a long time and they both have been pilgrims on the Camino, too.

The deep valley below Chalus had been stripped bare and was being worked on, presumably to turn it into landscaped gardens and the like down by the river but when we walked past it looked more like a quarry than a pretty valley. The town itself had a couple of interesting buildings and the hotel, which has a veranda and windows looking out across the valley, looked good.
Patrick and Robert had the refuge there to themselves and looked comfortable but this was hardly any distance to walk and we needed to move on. We walked out of the town and stopped in a deserted campsite above it where we found a bench to sit and eat our lunch. It had a good view over the town and beyond it into the valley. We thought that the campsite would be a good place to stop at and camp (if it really does open up for the season).

Eventually, we entered Billanges and started our search for the Gites we were planning to stay at tonight. There were little signs (little figures, tiles and so on) dotted all around the village pointing us gradually to the right place. The woman who runs the place was a leading ceramicist in Limoges and continues to do consultancy for the bigger and more specialist companies but she is here, in this little village, doing her own thing. She has a set of buildings (an old farm house and out buildings) stretching deep behind the street with gardens and patches for herbs, vegetables etc. then, if you walk down a grassy pathway between her and her neighbour’s properties you emerge on another street (the one we walked in on) with a large 19th century building across the road which is also hers.

Food tonight was a real mixture but with at least two large potato dishes, stir fries, salads and rice; lots to eat and drink and good company; lots of fuel for tomorrow.

Check out place markers 105, 115-118 too.

Camino Day 43 dimanche 16/5/10 - Benevent l’Abbay to Billanges

Waited for most of the other four to wake up and make a move before I got up.

Interesting to watch other people’s morning rituals and their order of doing things.

Patrick and Robert (the two French men) were up and off before I was down stairs (tea in a mug from Ian before breakfast!). Ian and I tidied up after Yves, Bernard and Rene left... Posted cards to mum and dad and set off on the road to Marsac (wine? If so, where are the vineyards?) then the chemin over hill and dale (very beautiful), got a coffee at a stop at St Goussard but then nothing – which was bad because at St Goussard discovered that we didn’t have enough cash to pay for tonight and no banks or cash machines ....

Also got a stamp at St Goussard from the neighbour of the bar/restaurant we stopped at; they were a really sweet elderly French couple. Made Chalus for lunch but stopped first to talk to Patrick and Robert and to admire their refugio there. Got to Billanges around 4.30 and followed signs through the village to Francoise’s gite.

We are in a very cold room in the main house, the others are in a warmer separate building a short walk away. We have just eaten a very large (slightly odd) meal and now trying to sleep – though wood being chopped in room below... still don’t know how payment will work out... also mum called today to tell us dad is doing well and may come home on Wednesday, which is a relief.

For most of France we walked through woodlands that were being well managed and used efficiently with piles of logs waiting to be collected everywhere.

I am going to put up just a few of the pictures from today's walk. The Way was lovely...

The coffee stop restaurant is to the right and their view was much better than this but you will have to go and have a meal to really appreciate it...

Just too many images, I am just picking a tiny selection

Yes the tree was blocking our path... and yes, we missed it and walked another Km before turning around!

simple beauty

The stony paths were a bit harsh on me but were worth the pain.

We were sure it would be pretty by this time next year...

This was part of our view from our lunch spot. Young horses were trotting around in this large field, too and the village was just tucked into the trees a bit further to the left.

even the roads were good to walk on

Got this one right, too.

Our entrance into Billanges

Camino Day 42 samedi 15/5/10 - Les Anglais, bier rural et les pelerins

It interesting that the only time we have had a real misunderstanding with the bill in France it is with an English couple as hosts.

The couple are not planning to stay much longer in France. They claim that they need to get back to England before their oldest is of the age to go to Secondary School as French schools are not very good for that stage in education. They are also talking about different rural businesses they could run back in the UK. But it is clear that they are not really happy here. The house is fantastic but it has been a huge drain on their resources (not just financial resources) and living in France has, I feel, been too much for them. Shame they came to this after the recession began to hit.... They have made a very good effort at it and have achieved more than most who embark on similar adventures in places like France. Small regional towns can be a strain in any country, I fear.

We went through one of the whackiest named places yet this morning.... Sagnemoussouse was its name. A tiny place with a name that just rolls off the tongue, falls on the floor, rolls around a bit more then threatens to trip you up. Picture below... note another rocket shaped spire a la Normandy but perhaps with an odd local twist to it.

The countryside is still very lush green and has an old fashioned English look to it – familiar but dream-like quality and then you turn the corner and the place definitely looks like France and nowhere else.... It is partly a shared legacy and a shared series of Geological ingredients.

When we arrived in the town we went to the place where the woman who owns the refuge lives (she owns a gite and knows Duncan so he advised us to go straight to her house first) Yves and co had already collected the keys and she directed us to the little refuge. She seemed a little bit flustered when we turned up and told us in very worried tones that the place was a bit basic and very small. She wasn’t sure it would hold us all and, as we were an “English couple” she would put us up in the gite if we wanted. We didn’t think that was necessary and wanted to see what the refugio was like so we headed off down to it.

It was a tiny little house on a narrow street of similar houses. The whole town is an odd mixture of things; old and crumbling buildings, small and weary rows of houses and some grander streets tucked away to one side of the town. Like a number of very small rural towns it looks like the locals began to abandon the centre in favour of new houses on the outskirts but they didn’t do the major town centre refurbishments that went on in Britain in the sixties and seventies. Shops, bars and businesses gradually faded and people from outside (quite a few Brits here) including people from Paris and other bigger cities began to buy up houses as semi-rural retreats, second homes and retirement/”start a new life” places before the locals started to dig their heels in and re-think their town. And now the recession is hitting them.

We talked with the English man who is staying in a room in the refugio. It is a bit of a blessing that he can stay there and basically pay for his lodgings by keeping the place going. He came down here with his partner, they had a child, split up, he stayed close, they had a short reconciling, she has another child by him and he is hanging on by his fingernails trying to work out how to stay, make a living and maintain the relationship, especially with his children.

I opened a cupboard to get the cleaning things out and found a store of children’s books and toys. A poignant image echoing an earlier encounter with a similar store but this feels more ordered and more used than the earlier scene I encountered. Simple things can serve to illustrate deep hurts and hard lived stages in our lives.

This evening we had a simple pasta sauce using the usual pack of lardons, garlic onion, herbs and tomatoes...easy, quick and filling.

We all used the washer and drier. Interesting standing there with Yves pulling out socks and pants from the drier identifying who owned what and leaving ones neither of us recognised on the back of a chair near the stove.

See placemarks 104-5.

Camino Day 42 samedi 15/5/10 - La Souterraine to Benevent l’Abbay

When we got the bill after breakfast we discovered that we had misunderstood the price by E20 (i.e. E20 per person not for the room.... grr) and so had to get more cash out to pay – but muesli for breakfast which was great.

Walked through the market and the man who stamped our books last night told us where to find the “Leader Price” supermarket so we went there en route and bought stuff for dinner (to cook). Also phoned ahead for accommodation tonight after talking to Duncan (owner of the gite).

Pleasant day’s walk – up and down but not too long. Stopped at a bar for a beer before lunch and found Rene, Yves and Bernard eating there. Desperate message from Dominique (our middle daughter) on Facebook resulted in a phone call to her to sort out arrangements for her graduation and then later a call with Mike Lagrue. Now we are going to go our own home before and after going to Durham for her graduation.

The gite where we are staying is full (good job I took advice and phoned this morning!) – there are the 5 of us in the top room which has a loo and shower and two French men in a smaller room on the first floor (also with a loo and shower) plus a Brit called Darren who lives here ... but they are all pleasant company... hopefully not too much snoring!

Also a fair number of expat Brits in the town – give-aways are the British section in the local Carrefour and the British bar which has a microbrewery of British style beer – we sampled some and chatted to some English people which was both nice and strange.

Everyone cooked and we sat around the table together to eat. Also good to have a place with sofas to sit on and a wood burning stove to keep us warm and dry things – it went out and was re-lighted by Rene and all of the French men together....


Our bed in the Gite

heading out through the main street in La Souterraine

get past the motorway and you are deep in rural France again.

There's a Sagnenoussouse loose aboot the hoos!

This is the ancient chemins followed by pilgrims for so long

Unmistakable sign that the Camino runs through here!

A pilgrim landscape ... but where is the sun?