Via Podiensis: Short Cuts and Long Breaks

31 August 2023 Thom Pilgrim Reports, Via Podiensis

Today started off rough. I accidentally left my clothes on the line outside last night, and it rained. So that made packing my bag this morning a little awkward.

Still, are you really a pilgrim if you haven’t walked with clothes clipped to the outside of your backpack as you walked?

After breakfast with the other pilgrims, several of us finally left the gîte about 8 AM. We soon spread out along the way. It was cool enough this morning that I started out wearing my fleece for the first time walking in France. It was roadwalking, but I soon left the town, and there were freshly plowed field to my right and cornfields to my left with corn taller than me.

Early on, the road has an almost constant upward slope. Not particularly steep, but just enough that I wasn’t moving at my normal early morning burst of speed. Shortly after cresting that first hill, the road ran out of asphalt and became my old friend, the gravel road.

The landscape around me was now gently rolling hills of grass, dotted with stands of trees. It was quite beautiful, though not perhaps as spectacular as some of the panoramas of days past.

The Way rolled up and down, right along with those hills. Cresting another hill brought me to get a different road surface, this time mostly grass, eventually becoming dirt and stone. It was warm enough by now that I took the opportunity to remove my fleece.

Eventually, the road converged with another gravel road and became asphalt once more. I passed through what I initially thought was a scattered village – really more of a collection of farmsteads – then turned a corner, and to my surprise discovered the actual center of the village of Rudelle as the Camino joined a two-lane road.

It was a storybook place, with little stone bridges over the creek and houses bunched around a castle keep.

This particular keep, had at some point been converted into a parish church, the aptly named church of Saint-Martial. Or perhaps the church had been converted into a castle? In any case, the interior was somewhat oddly configured, but altogether pleasing. On the outside front of the building, you could see where it had been connected to a larger structure at some point. It was a singular place.

Dominique caught up and passed me here, and while I was praying Ávila and Bruno also came in. The church bell struck 9 o’clock, a few minutes early by my reckoning. I moved on through the town, which was an odd, though not displeasing, combination of the medieval and the modern.

Back into the countryside, although the string of houses outside the village proper continued for some time. As in days past, the road surface alternated between asphalt, gravel, and dirt most of the day.

At one point in the morning, I stepped into what I thought was sand, but it turned out to be some sort of very fine powder that billowed up around me when I stepped into it. My black hiking shoes, which had been fading to brown over the last two weeks due to sun and wear, were now temporarily white.

A woodland path let me into the village of Thémines at about 10:30, joining the road right at the entrance to the village. I probably would’ve been there sooner, but I kept making wrong turns. Fortunately, I never strayed too far. I’d like to say it was because of poor signage, but the truth is that usually I was just absorbed in my thoughts and in my prayers and not paying enough attention.

I think this is a particular hazard of pilgrimage.

Ávila and Bruno caught up, and we spent entirely too long at second breakfast, which in my case consisted of an omelette. We didn’t even try to leave the village until after 11:30.

I say “try,” because as we were getting ready to go, Paul obtained the key to the church for us to visit. It looks quite unassuming on the outside, but on the inside the sanctuary is a neoclassical marvel, a total surprise when you enter the doors. Quite moving and affecting, I think because of that surprise.

We visited and prayed there a while, and it was already afternoon by the time we left the village, returning to the wide forest path for a bit before roadwalking again. And there was a lot of roadwalking this afternoon, but at least it was mostly level ground, with just a couple of ups and downs.

At the village of L’Hôpital, we took a diversion from the diversion to take a slight shortcut and follow the historic pilgrimage route. At first it was asphalt road walking, but then it became this beautiful, broad flat gravel road that didn’t appear on any of our digital maps.

About 2:15 or so, we sat down for a picnic lunch by the side of the road. It was remarkably difficult to stand up after that.

Shortly thereafter, we entered the suburbs of the town of Gramat. The houses were mostly new construction. Some of them are in traditional styles, but some of them are quite modern. And then, quite suddenly, we found ourselves walking along a busy highway.

At least there was a sidewalk. Shortly afterwards, we were in the town proper. In the midst of a very urban environment, we passed through a small covered arcade and found ourselves a million miles away from the city. It was like there was a lovely little riverside village tucked away from the rest of the world.

We passed beneath a magnificent grape arbor, and then up a little road around an outer wall by a busy road to Le Grand Couvent, arriving at about 3:20.

After a short rest and the usual pilgrim dance of shower and laundry, I will set out to explore the place.

In our little dorm room we have Ávila, Bruno, Martinique, myself, and two empty beds.

This is now the end of my second week of walking, and I have walked 312.2 km, or about 194 miles.