Pilgrims on the Way

At the top of the hill, the Camino flattened out. Well, mostly. There was still some undulating and the occasional hill, but mostly it was like this: gentle paths and roads through farmland and meadow. I made good time in this stretch, just cruising along. Initially, the mist was thick on the ground, but it pretty quickly lifted as I […]

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The race to Conques for Sunday Mass is a bit of a blur in my memory. The whole way, I just kept saying, “Lord, get me to the church on time!” but the first part of the walk was just hill after hill. There’s a metaphor there somewhere, I suppose. At one point, there were even steps set into the […]

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Although there has been a church at this spot since at least the 9th century when we have a charter of Louis the Pious giving it to the Abbey of Conques, the current church was built 500 years later. It was open, and I spent some moments in prayer here before leaving. A sign on the door included the Mass […]

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At about 8 AM I heard a Church bell ring out somewhere ahead of me. I soon arrived at the village of Sénergues, with its tall church steeple and castle tower. This was my only plausible stop of the morning. My visit turned out to be very brief indeed, for reasons I’ll talk about tomorrow. Even my brief walk-through of […]

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This little cluster of buildings is typical of the farmsteads I passed as I walked through Occitanie. Perhaps this was originally a manor or even a medieval priory. That building on the right does suspiciously resemble an old, repurposed chapel. I suspect, though, given the large millstone casually leaning against the wall on the left of the main building, that […]

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The next morning dawned cool and cloudy. It had rained most of the night, and out of an abundance of caution I wore my poncho. The path from the village was past a large cemetery, across a bridge, and then uphill into the woods. Through a large clearing of trees, I was able to see the village behind me, and […]

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This “L’Armoire du Partage” – I suppose you could translate it as “the sharing wardrobe” – stands outside the local shop in Espeyrac. I procured supplies for my dinner at the shop including fruit, chips, yogurt, and a beer. To this I added the remaining half of my sandwich from lunch. Quite a feast! I ate at a picnic table […]

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Although I had failed to reserve a bed in Espeyrac before I arrived, I was relatively confident of finding a bed, since my guidebooks listed four gîtes. However, when I arrived, I found of the four, two were full and one had vanished off the face of the Earth. This left me with my fourth choice, which was essentially a […]

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Although the interior is relatively plain,the church of Saint-Pierre d’Espeyrac contains a fairly impressive collection of nearly life-size statues of various saints mounted high on the walls. Here are just three representative samples: Saints Peter the Apostle, Joan of Arc, and John Vianney. These are all the type of mass-produced sculptures that you see in Catholic parishes all over the […]

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This parking lot / village square is the heart of the tiny village of Espeyrac. Off to my left is the local shop / café, and just beyond that is the gîte municipal. The little church in front of me is Saint-Pierre, and it’s by far the largest building in the village. Despite it’s small size, there are dozens of […]

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