Author: Thom

The church in Nasbinals was already at least several hundred years old when it first appeared in a charter giving it over to the Benedictines in 1074. It has, of course, been restored and remodeled many times since then. It was a monastic church until the Revolution, and it now serves as the village parish church. It is, like most […]

At just about 1pm, I entered the town of Nasbinals, my destination for the day. According to the electronic sign at the pharmacy, it was 32° C, which is about 90° F. The pilgrim in the photo is Delphiné from Brittany. I caught up to her as we were entering the town. First step: find my gîte (which in this […]

To complement the forest cows of a couple of days ago, here in the Aubrac we have the river cows. A little later on, the Camino would cross over the river on a stone bridge, and there I got to see some river pilgrims as well. I believe that this is the river Bés. Date: 22 August 2023 Place: between […]

Just before the village of Rieutort-d’Aubrac, I found a food truck with an attached outdoor café. It was a quarter to eleven by the time I finally had my breakfast, and by this point I’d been walking for about 20 km. The temperature was already 81° F. This was the best bread and cheese ever. I had a brief reunion […]

This was my view 45 minutes after passing the sign and the tiny village of Finieyrols, and there was still no sign of a place for breakfast! My guide said that there was a café in Finieyrols, but if there was I did not see it. My only companions were a handful of fellow pilgrims and herds of cattle scattered […]

Throughout the morning, I took many photos of the landscape as I walked through the Aubrac plateau. Virtually all of them look pretty much like the one I posted last week. The terrain was undulating, and I walked up and down many slopes, though it wall all sort of trending upwards. And everywhere grass with occasional boulders. It was something […]

By half past eight, I was well and truly into the Aubrac plateau. This vast sea of grass (with occasional boulders) is cattle country. I crossed through numerous cattle gates in the next hours, and if I couldn’t see cattle I could certainly hear their bells. Might explain why beef was pretty much always on the menu for a couple […]

Somewhere past Lasbros, I ran into this fellow. He was making the pilgrimage with two human friends. They weren’t moving very quickly, and after I passed them I never saw them again. It’s a timely reminder that there are as many ways to do a pilgrimage as there are pilgrims. Also, this is when I found out that in France, […]

I’m not sure who left this little fellow or why, but his days of pilgrimage seem to be over. For one thing, he’s missing a foot! I’m not even entirely sure what sort of animal this is meant to be. Sheep? Dog? Llama? Alpaca? I often encountered this sort of odd whimsy on the GR-65 route. I myself am not […]

The charming little Bastide chapel might be the tiniest sacred space I prayed in during my 2023 pilgrimage. I found it to be a beautiful and holy place, of the sort that we don’t really have in the United States – just a quiet little chapel to stop in and pray. There’s a visitors’ book on the little stone ambo […]