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LIVE from the Camino Camino home to home, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024

Day 373 (+0) - - Roncesvalles

I am on the Camino Francès !! I am in Navarra !!

A rest day, clothes-washing day, and last meal in Spain day. There's trout on the menu !!

But really - - My this one has been a long time coming !! I had even given up on it myself, until I got called back to that 2024 Intermediary Camino, to my own great surprise. I am so grateful to Bill Bennett for giving one of the pushes that I needed, and a guest priest at our Parish who gave another.

I have no idea how far I will get tomorrow, but I will do my absolute best.

This is when it gets back to being tough again.
 
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Day 374 - - Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port

I am in France !!

I am in the Pyrénées Atlantiques !!

I am on the Voie de Navarre !!

I started out from Roncesvalles with neither coffee nor beer, and it went pretty well. I began on the trail up to Ibañeta, then from there up on mostly the tarmac to the top of the pass.

I was not alone in that direction, apart from some day hikers, there were also two young French guys seemingly doing the Pyrenees trail, plus 4 or 5 pilgrims also heading the same way.

It was tough, but with some places to rest it worked out, and after reaching the water fount by the border I was fine.

Reaching the tarmac road section meant the hardest part was done.

I had nearly reached Orisson, where I supposed I would be sleeping outside, but a driver stopped beside me and from seeing my walking difficulties offered me a lift down. I don't hitch-hike on a more serious Camino except in emergency, but for my disability I will accept kind and spontaneous offers like this one, and so I did, and here I am.

I have anyway walked over the pass proper for the first time in twenty years or so, it was fantastic to be up there again, and that had been one of the biggest compromises in 2022, that I no longer have to fret about. Hooraaay !!

I helped a couple of pilgrims in the same way I try and do in here, then off to the pilgrim office and then to the Municipal and bed.

Not sure about my plan today, but the Pilgrim Office gave me a spare Miam Miam Dodo which will help, and I also have my early 2023 posts for the section to Navarrenx. I am anyway walking the Le Puy Way that far, then switching down towards Oloron-Sainte-Marie, Lourdes, and sort-of the Piémont Way after that.

Breakfast, cash machine, supermarket, walk. Not a good idea on Saturday to try and get a medication refill (they would need to be ordered by the pharmacy), so I'll do that in Saint-Palais.
 
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Day 375 - - Saint-Jean-le-Vieux

Dog Days are upon us here, and I am going no further - - yet this is also because it's a great place to sleep out. There's the porch of the church, public toilets right here, bars, and a little supermarket right next to all of this.

I had already purchased a French sausage in SJPP, I got myself a camembert here, just had lunch and my gut feels at peace for the first time in about a month. Some Spanish food is excellent, but I really do feel unhappy without these kinds of French basics.

Now if only they would start importing Mahou Verde into this country ...

I am seeing more pilgrims today than I have ever seen on any French route previously. Their presence is reassuring.

And I am so glad to be back in France !!
 
A charming little minigrina in a pink dress, walking with her parents and a younger sibling in a pushchair, asked me why I was walking in the opposite direction. Children always have the best questions.

Because I'm going home.
 
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Got up not just before dawn this morning, but before twilight which is very unusual for me.

But it's going to be a 40°C day, so it's all for the best. I was just packing my things into the backpack when I heard some large shutters coming up, and as hoped that turned out to be the opening sound of the bar-tabac, so coffee and a beer, and a better place to take my meds and supplements, wait for the anti-inflammatory to kick in, recharge my devices a little.

Slept well enough, being able to have a quasi-shower in the public toilets before settling in was a great help.

Miam Miam Dodo helps too, it seems to think there are a couple of watering holes along the way. I'll aim for Ostabat anyway, let's see if I actually get there ...
 
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Day 376 - - Utxiat

Again ...

Reason is simple, it has become far too hot to continue, and I have a (fairly mild) sunstroke. Not pre-symptoms as on previous occasions this Camino, but the real thing.

Providentially, here in the little pilgrim refuge in the old mill is exactly what I need against it.

Cool, dark, silence (mostly), solitude, cold water, no food.

Twice I have found refuge here - - in January last year against near freezing conditions ; and today against afternoon temps that will exceed 40°C ...
 
Day 377 - - Ostabat

Internet is not much good here, so a short post. I stayed at the Ospitalia place, which is pleasantly old-fashioned, with two other pilgrims. Otherwise just rest and recovery, including food and drinks. Chat with pilgrims.

Couldn't make use of the pilgrim menu here sadly, main course was sardines which I must absolutely avoid.

The main Summer heat seems to be ending here, though no doubt I'll catch up with it as I get closer to the Mediterranean.

Should be no problem to Saint-Palais, weather seems to be still a bit muggy, and there should be some rain, good for hiking in other words.
 
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Day 378 - - Saint-Palais

It was a little longer to get here than last time, from starting a little further away, and the extra descent did my ankle little good.

I also missed a turn off, and ended up doing a portion on the cyclists route, so over half a K extra, and an extra little climb.

And it was also humid, so sweaty still despite being a little cooler weather. It did rain quite a lot last night though, so hopefully better today ?

The Franciscains place is rather nice, though it was still better when the friars were here. Still, change can be expected 30 years later, and as change goes, this is good enough.

I did stop at Harambeltz for a bottle of cider, and it was pleasing that the (lovely) hospitalera had such a clear memory of me from last year. They are so nice there, but I needed that precautionary rest in Ostabat.

Some supplies before heading out, then the main road to Aroue. It's not a hard one to walk.
 
Day 379 - - Aroue

I am on the Le Puy Way !!

Something is off, and I think there's another barrier or threshold I need to get past.

I have been fixing some compromises from the end of the last stage, but that's not good enough, and it is a very negative way to approach the rest of this going forward.

This needs to stop being a kind of Camino by default, but it really needs to become my walk back home in its own right - - though even that is confused by the fact that the best way there is still through Lourdes, which is itself a pilgrimage.

But I can't think about the Piémont Way at all, otherwise, except where it might coincide with my best way home, which it does seem to do in some parts of it.

But I think I also need to get back to how I started this 2024 outing, and get back to letting the Way back Home lead me where it wishes instead of trying to force things onto it. It has been OK so far, but now I need to get out of the Francès state of mind. I do not know what that will entail, but I do know that it will be a good thing, or at least something necessary, to get off this Le Puy route after Navarrenx and to avoid most of the Piémont Way after Lourdes.

The pilgrims I'm meeting are fine, but their state of mind is directed towards Compostela which is the opposite of what I need to be focused upon.

One thing though - - reaching Saint-Palais after having crossed over from Roncesvalles did finally feel like I have finished the Francès portion of this Home to Home, which the 2023 part of this had not provided. I guess that is why I now feel that I need to move on from it, though I still have to work out how.

But yeah, I still need to get to Lourdes. I am thinking of maybe Tarbes from there, but the easy route from there does still lead to some places that the Piémont passes through. I will still completely avoid Toulouse !!
 
The sense of completion from finishing the Roncesvalles to Saint-Palais section of my Francès is real, and I have moved on from the frustration that I had felt since last January at how things had ended.

And now I am remembering instead what my original plans were, back in 2019, for my return from ending the Francès. And they did not involve walking absolutely every step of the way.

It will need to be a proper lengthy return, and much of it will be on foot as I had originally planned, and indeed far more of it than on my intermediary 2024 Narbonne > Santiago > Roncesvalles, which I needed to do in order to make this an actual return journey in my head.

I am starting to work out an itinerary after Lourdes, and > Tarbes > Saint-Gaudens > Auterive > Pamiers > Carcassonne > Béziers > Montpellier > etc. feels about right for the time being, though it will be important to remain flexible.

And to get back into my mindset of Stages 1 and 2 of this very long Camino. Going via Tarbes will help in that respect. I need to move away from these mountains and get closer to the Mediterranean side of things.

—————

Walking homeward in France is clearly something quite different to walking homeward on the Francès.
 
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Saint-Palais to Aroue has been an important one somehow.

It was raining when I started out, and so half of the day's walk was in my cape, which always makes the backpack lighter and easier to carry.

The road walking wasn't hard, though the weekday rather than the Sunday last time meant there was more traffic.

I did come across a few pilgrims, including some on the main road. In Domezain there is a bar-restaurant that is not on mapy.cz, and just wanting a beer I saw they had fish and chips which I could not resist.

Walking then to Aroue it was clear that it would have been too far for me last year, so I had been right to hitch that lift, but I was pleased to make the full walk this time. Once I have walked all of the way from Navarrenx to Oloron-Sainte-Marie, that will be a big milestone as then I will have walked, one way or another, all of the most direct routes between home and Santiago, Fátima, Lourdes.

The Bellevue gîte here is very comfortable, and it has been as helpful now as it was in early 2023, albeit for different reasons. Yesterday afternoon, a chat with the husband in the couple who are walking Le Puy to Santiago in stages also helped me reframe my own Way, from his own questions, and helped me realise it's time for a change.

It was already clear that this one more pilgrimage to Lourdes needs to be for thanksgiving more than anything else, though it's also significant that the pilgrimage I made there earlier this year turned out to be the major pilgrimage to Lourdes on this Camino, which also changes my perspective now.

This was always about the three pilgrimages, Fátima, Compostela, Lourdes, and the pilgrimage home, and yet once I reach Oloron-Sainte-Marie on foot rather than by the hitch-hiking I was again forced into last year, then not just those three will have been done, but also I will have completed all of the Camino aspect of this in at least one direction including twice from there to and from SJPP, once through the Somport, twice between there and Lourdes, not even counting the extras.

OK so maybe I haven't walked a route via Bayonne, but I have still crossed that border on foot, as well as the one between Cerbère and Portbou. I am still close to an important completion in hiking terms.

And that does change things.

Anyway, to Navarrenx today. It's a short one IIRC.
 
Days 380 & 381 - - Navarrenx

It was a harder walk than it should have been, as it really is not a difficult stage nor a very long one, and it is clear that I have some cumulative fatigue and need a rest day.

If I walked today, I think there's too much risk of injury, and my legs feel like I have already walked today rather than just having got out of bed and had my breakfast.

I am staying at the Parochial donativo here which is quite wonderful, and very new having only been re-established in this new location in April of this year. The beds and showers and all the facilities are top notch, and being attached to the Parish church, there is a very Catholic atmosphere to the place.

It will be good to go to Mass this evening. I would have been too tired yesterday, but anyway it had been a morning Mass for the Feast Day that I wasn't here for, but I was at the Gourmandise Gasconne place at a crossroads between here and Aroue with other pilgrims stuffing ourselves with pâté (pilgrim-size small tins for €2.50) and drinks to taste. That was a good temporary group of pilgrims, quite aware that some aspects of pilgrimage are more important than the hiking.

It was there though that I first started to feel the pain in my legs and ankle that has led to this rest day.

This is one of the most peaceful places I have ever stayed in on any Camino, and that too comes to a great degree from the Catholic Christian atmosphere to the place. A young couple with young baby are in charge here, very good people, though they are greatly assisted by the priests here and by others from the Parish Community.

The two returning pilgrims that I met yesterday both had Navarrenx as their end point, the one with the dog and the trolley instead of a backpack because he lives here, the other whose first Camino was in 1982 for wanting to be in this Parish for yesterday's Assumption Mass and for pilgrimage reasons.

I really like it here, and it will be pleasant to spend a day in Navarrenx instead of just rushing through once more.
 
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I am about two thirds of the way to Oloron now, having a rest and a cool one. It's quite hot again now, but it hasn't been that difficult. I did pass the point where I felt the need to hitch-hike last time, so that now I am walking through villages that are new to me, which is lovely.

I do like this little Oloron <---> Navarrenx small country roads variant.

The rest day was definitely the right choice, else I would potentially have injured myself, and I think anyway have been forced into another hitch-hike.

Didn't make it to Mass sadly, still in a bit too much pain yesterday in the evening ...
 
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Day 382 - - Oloron-Sainte-Marie

I am on the Piémont Way !!

And Whew !! I made it !! (11 hours)

That was a 23K - - close again to the 25K barrier, but ...

A couple of errors in the last post. I think I was really just over halfway when I posted it ; also, when I talked about villages I had never seen before, I was posting from the Piémont and from a village I had walked through in 2005

In my defence, I was only about 400 metres into the Piémont from the roundabout.

Still, I have now fully rejoined the traces of my previous Caminos, so that except for the third pilgrimage this time and at last the foot pilgrimage to Lourdes of this Camino, what is ahead of me now is return and only return, and then home.

Oh - - need to sleep out tonight, and it has just started raining. Hooorrraaaayyy !!
 
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I have discovered an abandoned warehouse/garage seemingly unknown to any local drunks etc, that has a handy pile of wooden construction beams that are perfect as a bench to sit on.

It is dark, isolated, has a roof and enough walls. The ground is just dirt and mulch, so no different to some ad hoc bedding out in the sticks.

A good place to sleep.
 
I am very glad that I did find that sleeping spot, as the rain poured down massively in the hours before dawn - - one of my usual sorts of covered places would most definitely not have been good enough.

BTW I would have gone to the Albergue, but the proprietors live 25K out of town ; and as I was quite unsure whether I would manage to make it in or not, I could not honestly reserve it by phone.

No harm, and I slept well enough.

The ankle is hurting a bit, but hopefully some supermarket beers can fix that.
 
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I'm not going anywhere today, except to the Albergue. It took me too long to get the pain down, I want some kind of pilgrim menu from eating nothing yesterday, and the weather is just too yucky.

All of this is available right here.

I am letting the Camino guide me, and it seems to be rooting me to this spot.
 
Day 383 - -

Rest day. I had a large steak, which was excellent, then I went to the Albergue and rested.

er, that's it. Well, they do have a disabled dorm and I was in that, so I did sleep alone and with my own shower etc, though that did mean that I had very little interaction with the other pilgrims, of whom there were around 10 or so.

It's much easier to set out this morning than the other one, anyway, had a coffee, having a beer, and I am right next to the way out of town. I will NOT take the trail, which I already know to be outrageously ghastly in wet conditions. In fact last year, that section was basically the last straw for me.

So - - tarmac instead. Doesn't look too difficult.
 
I am in Herrère after a stretch on the main road, then switch to a local hiking route, and well - - this is the way I came in 2005 ; and if I had thought of this route yesterday or this morning, the walk would have been a lot more pleasant, on country roads through little villages, starting from just a couple of hundred metres away from where I went out this morning.

Oh well, been there and done that - - literally - - but more of a repeat would have been great. Even better would have been to think of it in 2023 ...

I saw one Camino waymarker BTW in the village, so I guess some bicigrinos come this way ? Or is it the old route or something ?
 
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Day 384 - - Arudy

Things went sideways half way through the day.

I wanted a pause at Ogeu-les-Bains for its supermarket, or failing that the bar - - but I reached the first at three minutes past closing time, and as to the second due to new management, it is closed until 3rd September.

aaaaaaaarrrrgh !!

And thing is, I really did need some beers for some rising pain in my ankle and legs. I managed to walk to the next village, Buziet, but after that I was done. I could have made it to Buzy, but there was no point. The pain was so bad I was forced to hitch-hike the last few K, and eventually I got a lift from a friendly gent who was going further, but was on a side quest for cat food, and he dropped me off at the supermarket in Arudy. A few beers did finally fix the pain, though I'm afraid that I overcompensated somewhat thereafter, especially at the evening meal I had at the excellent restaurant here.

Well, at least that added up to a good night's sleep.

The priest at the Parish Albergue here was, is, and remains excellent as always.

I will do my best to avoid yesterday's problems along the way to Asson, hopefully I'll manage the whole walk, if my ankle behaves.
 
Going very slowly, but somehow that's now OK.

Walking to and then past Arudy seems to have been the final thing I needed to get myself back into my Stage 1 walking through France state of mind.

Maybe because I have passed the last entry points into Spain ? Regardless, any which way forward will now be fine, except for long-distance public transport.

I do now have to start considering the state of my knees and ankles more than I have been, and make my way homeward accordingly.

I am letting the Camino take me where it wants, and this morning it took me to a hitch-hiking point that it also took me to during the 2024 intermediary Way. I am having a beer in this place right now.

Apart from my walk to Roncesvalles in 2022, my returns have generally been a mix of hitching and hiking, and I guess I need to make an extended version of that to get back home - - that anyway was my plan back in 2018 when I first devised this insane project !!
 
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Day 385 - - Lourdes

I am in the Hautes-Pyrénées !!

Well, this Camino is now heading into its final episodes - - the part where I hitch-hike towards home along the Camino route has started ; which I have never done properly in France, but instead I have always previously taken faster roads after crossing the border.

This time, it will take me some weeks, plus I don't know how much hiking.

Anyway, I am somewhat surprised to have reached Lourdes, but I have decided that it's time to let the Camino decide where it takes me, and here is where that was.

The Albergue was full when I arrived, but Frédéric agreed to let me sleep on the floor outside ; though as it turned out after supper, one pilgrim had forgotten to cancel a reservation, so that I ended up sleeping in a bed. Hooray, and the Camino provides.

I was glad to help a couple of pilgrims with route planning.

I will continue hitch-hiking along more or less the Piémont route for the time being, and I will accept whichever place that leads me to today - - and how much walking will be needed out from Lourdes to reach a good spot. I will not go via Tarbes anyway.
 
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Get a Spanish mobil number + data while on the Camino
Get a spanish phone number with Airalo. eSim, so no physical SIM card. Easy to use app to add more funds if needed.
Day 386 - - Lannemezan

I was sitting by the roadside in Lourdes, almost ready to set out. A car stopped, which I didn't notice at first, a young woman got out and came up to me - - a peregrina who had met me in Fátima 2 years ago.

I honestly couldn't remember her, I have crossed the paths of probably tens of thousands of pilgrims since then, and hundreds that I have interacted or talked with, but this was a significant second meeting, given where it was taking place, and given that the impulse of this pilgrimage was to walk to Fátima.

It felt like a bookend, and I have taken it as a strong sign and confirmation that it is time to wrap this up - - of course still by my hitch-hiking along the Camino method.

I did make a late start of it yesterday, and it led to a short stretch of hiking between two small villages on the Piémont Way, little country road that I could still remember from the 2005.

A couple of hikers walking the GR not the Camino passed me along the way as it came to a turnoff to the trail, and shortly after I found a lift to here.

After a light meal of some cooked ham, I contacted the Parish, and I ended up being given some floor space in one of the church premises. Slept well, and there's Mass in a little while.
 
Day 387 - - Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges

Another typical, ordinary Camino day.

My first lift this morning was from a young woman who had been to the recent World Youth Day in Fátima.

The second from a former pilgrim, 2003 and 2005, who proposed some lunch at his home, then drive me onwards later. We reminisced and exchanged, compared Credenciales and whatnot, and well, his place is about 5K from Saint-Bernard.

So I said that's the place to go, though he was unaware that this place existed. He was so happy to be in an Albergue de Peregrinos !!

The massively overworked hospitalera here is genuinely amazing though, such a lovely, beautiful person, giving so much of herself to so many others. And not just a few pilgrims in the Hostel, but hundreds upon hundreds every week at the Cathedral.

This is truly a special place - - I hadn't realised how much 19 years ago, coming in late in the evening after one of my crazy 40K hikes or something, then zooming off again in the morning for more of the same.

Cowbells are jingling in the night as I type this, and I think I will get another blanket.

The 8:30 AM Mass this morning at Lammezan on this Marian Feast day seems to have helped somewhat.
 
Day 388 - - Saint-Gaudens

I am in the Hsute-Garonne !!

I really did want to move on further this afternoon, but my ankles and knees have vetoed that proposal.

More positively, there appears to be 0% chance of rain, so I think I can find a good spot fairly easily.

Today was a hiking day, though just something like a 5K to 10K before getting a good lift. I did meet one peregrino along the way, a good Italian fellow who started in Venice. I do seem to keep on bumping into these long-distancers !!

A couple of local kids offered me a ham sandwich, which was so kind, plus I have a sausage.

It's getting warmer again as I get closer to the Atlantic/Mediterranean divide, though the pine trees and grasshoppers are still sparse. The Pyrenean mountain sides are starting to look a little more Eastern though, and there's a deep warmth to the air that's starting to feel a little like home.

I will seek no indoors solution ; last time here, I guess in 2021, involved some dodgy characters and some theft.
 
Camino Way markers in Bronze
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
Day 389 - - suburbs of Saint-Gaudens

A bad day of chronic depression. Also, I had a slight fall last night, so I was hurting too.

I have found somewhere covered and protected enough against the rain, and mostly against the wind.

I do need to be alone during these anxiety attacks, so hitch-hiking was out of the question. Should be better tomorrow.
 
Day 390 - - Foix

I am in the Ariège !!

Two sections of walking, and two long lifts - - and I am preparing to sleep outside again, sigh, though it looks like no rain.

I definitely need some indoors tomorrow, whether from a pilgrim friend who has tentatively offered to put me up for a night, or from some pilgrim accommodation. The latter seems likeliest.

I am just about getting out of the Pyrenees either way, and back into some terrain that I might prefer to hike. I guess the good hitch-hiking today made up for the rubbish day yesterday.

Good to get some device recharging anyway, in this pleasant bar.

I really don't like three nights in a row outside, but at least the temperatures are a little cooler.
 
Camino Way markers in Bronze
The one from Galicia (the round) and the one from Castilla & Leon. Individually numbered and made by the same people that make the ones you see on your walk.
I ended up sleeping not too badly, in a small park with packed dirt next to a proper park bench. The el cheapo inflatable mattress on the packed dirt was fairly soft.

And it's not too hot, so no sweating in the night either.
 
Let us pick up your suitcase once you arrive in Europe....
...and ship it to Santiago for storage. You pick it up once in Santiago. Service offered by Casa Ivar (we use DHL for transportation).
Day 391 - - Pamiers

Well, I did start walking here, and then a kind young lady stopped and spontaneously offered me a lift, which with my knees etc. I will accept in those cases. She had a scallop shell in the dashboard, an ashtray she said, and an uncle who has walked many ways, and she was surprisingly knowledgeable about the Camino, so potentially a future peregrina ?

Pamiers is strange - - beautiful and with a mix of some bourgeois inhabitants and some more questionable types.

I got a bed in the parochial Albergue, which is pretty basic but good enough. Cold shower.

But my - - a bed. A bed !!

After three nights outside, it was pure heaven, and the Camino keeps on teaching not to take even the most basic things for granted.

A pilgrim friend has offered to put me up for a night, maybe it will be two let's see, and who knows, maybe I will start feeling like a human being again ?

I am out of the Pyrenees anyway, though still not into Mediterranean France.
 
Days 392 & 393 - - Villasavary

I am in the Aude !!

And finally on the Mediterranean side of the Continental divide, though the vegetation hasn't quite realised it yet.

The hitch-hiking here wasn't too bad, despite one lengthy 5K stretch in the middle along a small départementale until finally someone stopped.

Anyway my pilgrim friend picked me up at the end of it, and I have had two good nights at the family home, meeting his parents, two of his brothers who are making their summer visits, a nephew and nieces, and I have been sleeping in a detached portion of the property.

We had met when I was still walking towards Fátima whilst he was with a group walking from Fátima to Lourdes for religious purposes, which simply took me a little longer to get done at my end.

It's nice to be in a family environment too, for a change. And being in more explicitly Catholic environments since crossing the Pyrenees has been great too.

And a friend of my friend is coming nearby today to pick up some bits of wood from nearby Fanjeaux, and he will be putting me up somewhere between Carcassonne and Béziers. From the phone he sounds like a clever chap. I think he wants to speak some English as he misses it from his time in Australia.

Anyway I am getting closer to the home stretch, though that's not really until after Aix-en-Provence or something I guess ? Though being in the Mediterranean proper will be brilliant.

Weather is back up into the 30s °C, from heading back towards the Med, and BTW the heat is one of the things that made the road walking a bit more annoying that day.

I have been getting some reading done too, and that's good as well.
 
Day 394 - - somewhere between Laure-Minervois and Peyriac-Minervois

Short post, got in late to sleep here at the house of my friend's friend, and I spent the day reading yesterday.

Back into the hitch-hiking today.
 
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Day 395 - - Béziers

I didn't mention yesterday that I am finally into the pine trees zone ; but then I had passed into it in the dark.

The elderly couple that my host is renting his house from have a chapel with the Blessed Sacrament, and it was beautiful to start the morning with the morning Office and then breakfast at their place.

Then the hitch-hiking to Béziers was fairly standard, went well, except I wasted a bit of time in the city from being left slightly in the outskirts, and then from not realising that the Albergue has switched locations. It has moved from the centre of the old Cité to a location across the bridge in the direction of Santiago.

It's mostly similar to the old place, a little less elegant but also more spacious.

There are two other pilgrims, joining them for coffee soon, a Dutch lady who is finishing here, and a young German peregrino who is doing a second Camino in stages, this year to Carcassonne.

Weather is hot and sweaty again ; I'll try and make it to Montpellier I guess.
 
Bad hitch-hiking today, got one lift over about 2.5K, and I have anyway made it to the shopping centre at the edge of the suburbs where I ended up sleeping outside on my way in back in 2019. Saw the last Avengers movie at the matinée performance next day, before heading in to Béziers.

I am cowering away out of the dog day heat in the supermarket entrance, nice metal bench here, some water, and a few room temperature ones.

It is hot and humid.

I will likely move on and not sleep here again, though Montpellier today looks about as unlikely as sleeping outside instead seems likely. Anyway, it's already pretty much too late for the Albergue in Montpellier.

We'll see how it goes, looks like 0% chance of rain anyway.
 
Day 396 - - Vias

Second hitch-hike was the total opposite, the very first car stopped. Hooooraaayyy !!

I think that I came through here in 2019, and stage 2 of this Camino.

My spot to sleep is at the bowls club, called "pétanque" by these Continentals, and despite 0% chance of rain, I am still happy for their roof.

It is still very hot and sticky though.

I saw some beautiful sleep spots with pine needles etc, but none with the bench or other sitting spot that I need.

This place is a good compromise.
 
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Day 397 - - Frontignan-Plage

The hitch-hiking is horrid in this region.

BTW I had been forgetting ...

I am on the Via Romieu !!

I am in the Hérault !!

I have OTOH since Béziers been revisiting locations that I walked through on the way there, so that is pleasant and it is feeling more and more like a return.

I am sleeping out by the sea front, and if it rains then I will be wet.

Sorry not much more, too much of a bad mood. Better tomorrow I hope ...
 
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Day 398 - - Montpellier

I am on the Arles Way !!

I slept OK on the beach, but my legs were quite sore from the road walking out of Sète that I had to do. I had taken a bus into Sète instead of trying to hitch-hike to Mèze etc, pretty much just because the bus turned up at a bench where I was resting, and I am still unsure whether that was a mistake or not - - I could just as well have ended up stuck somewhere else instead.

I was seriously annoyed though after Sète, as the one chance I had for a lift was ruined for me by the petrol station employee who came and interfered with the negotiations. The driver would likely have refused anyway, but that guy's interference made certain of it.

Walking out of Sète on a horrid main road did not improve my mood, though it was a relief to find a pleasant spot to sleep.

The el cheapo inflatable mattress now has a puncture BTW, and it deflates overnight.

Anyway, the legs were pretty sore in the morning, and not even a couple of beers from the supermarket helped with it. I walked to Frontignan proper, then got a bus and tram into Montpellier. Frontignan is pleasant enough though, and the sea front surroundings and encounters with a few nice people did lift my mood.

It was a bit of a wait for the Albergue opening time, then I grabbed a plate of simple pasta there, showered, washed a t-shirt, and crashed. A head start on my sleep was a good idea, as it was one of those nights here where the local students, drunks, and loonies make a huge racket outside the Albergue 'til about 4AM + ...

There were five other pilgrims here, and another starting soon who just popped in for some info.

It does look like a bit of another difficult hitch-hiking day though, but I hope I am mistaken.

Weather is quite hot.
 
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Day 399 - - Mauguio

I enjoyed the walk out of Montpellier.

Then I reached the huge shopping mall they have created at the edge of the suburbs, and it was like stepping into an alien planet. How can people live in this way, and put up with such imposition of multinational corporatism into their lives ? But instead they seem to positively relish it. Perhaps it's no accident that Montpellier seems to be the home of so many who are schizophrenic and/or possessed.

From there I got a couple of good lifts, then as I arrived in the centre of the bourg, a truly lovely lady gave me first an amazing smile, then offered a drink (some good red wine), something to eat, and especially some brilliant conversation. She was sleeping out too, for reason of some very silly family problems, so we arranged to meet up later and sleep in company.

I found the supermarket for supplies, and we met again a couple of hours later by the town hall.

Her son brought her tent, drove us to the camp site, and we had more pleasant conversation and a bit too much rosé, listened to some music, and slept.

I am ever so slightly hungover, but that turned out to be a very memorable Camino day.
 
Day 400 - - Hooray !! - - Aimargues

I am in the Gard !!

First thing that happened after coffee in Mauguio was that a man in a van stopped and said, Hey Pilgrim !! and gave me €40 ; then turned round and drove me to Lunel.

Of course he was a pilgrim himself, and one of the truly rare ones who has made the three Major Foot Pilgrimages - - Santiago ; Rome ; Jerusalem.

Yeah the Camino provides and yadda yadda, and yet this is still just a fairly normal Camino day for me, and this Grace in that beautiful encounter including on my Day 400, still ends up with a need to sleep outside, and I have found a good spot that is covered against the rain.

I did get myself a pizza, though I am unsure that garlic improves the recipe.

I am getting so close to home now, and yet this is still VERY much the Camino. I am meeting people every day and each stage of it is still a crazy unpredictable adventure. Good, bad, or both.

This is what was missing at the end of my 4th stage at the turn of the year, 2022 - 2023, and now what was missing is provided - - the Camino provides.
 
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Garlic improves almost anything...savory, at least. Just an opinion, obviously, but light-hearted.

Does your body allow any walking, @JabbaPapa? I hope so. And that you can actually walk up to your front door to cap this all off. Bon chemin!!
 
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Day 401 - - Vauvert

The rain was heavy, but I was well protected from it at my spot. The one issue is that somewhere I lost the water container that another pilgrim had lost in Lavacolla - - well, I hope that it moves on to another owner who will make use of it. But I had no water left to drink overnight.

This was a really short day, even in hitch-hiking terms. And I started super early too, which is very unlike me, and I got into town at about 8AM ...
VNwalking said:
Garlic improves almost anything...savory, at least. Just an opinion, obviously, but light-hearted.
Click to expand...
Well, I ended up throwing up a part of that pizza in the morning, so opinions might diverge on that one.

Notwithstanding tray pizza and pissaladière, fougasse, some other exceptions - - and you can definitely use garlic in a fougasse - - garlic is anathema to both ways of making pizza in France ; Italian style obviously not, and nor does pizza in the Niçois style from where I live allow for it either. Not even in the spicy sauce that goes on that style of pizza. It ruins the flavour of the tomato. It's not even used in the onion-based pissaladière.

I llove garlic, and used some last night, but it has nothing to do in any pizza.

Anyway, the supermarket in Vauvert eventually opened as I needed resupplies to get over the effects of the pizza, then in the meantime I got a coffee and a beer and some devices recharging at the bar next to it, and looked over my options.

And thing is - - today is payday, and I am close to Marseilles ; so it's time to get a new pair of army boots !! The pair I have now is over 10 years old, and saw me through my 2014, and my 2024 intermediary, and now a part of my Home to Home, but really they are dead.

BTW I have been wearing them every day since January 2023, as well as between 2012/2013 and 2018, plus off Camino in 2019 to 2022, not just for the walking this time.

So I needed somewhere with an Albergue and a railway station, and Vauvert has both. So I called the great hospitalero here, and there we go. Le Refuge des Pèlerins is the one. Upon arrival, I realised that here is where I had slept on the way there, so that's good.

He wasn't back until the evening, so I showered, ate something, took care of myself, had a bit of a siesta.

When he did arrive, we had a good chat, and when he understood my plans, first he said pilgrims returning from Santiago stay for free ; then as he works in Nîmes, he'll drive me there, great as it has more train times than the little station here.

BTW this will be the ONLY train journey on my return home from Roncesvalles and Lourdes.
VNwalking said:
Does your body allow any walking, @JabbaPapa? I hope so. And that you can actually walk up to your front door to cap this all off. Bon chemin!!
Click to expand...
It's really not a question of willing or able, but this has become my way forward now, since Lourdes.

I have known since the planning stage in 2018 that I would likely only walk some of the return from Lourdes and I had planned to do a fair amount of hitch-hiking from there, and as to the balance between hitching and hiking, that's dynamic.

Anyway, the encounters that I am having along the way do seem to indicate that for the time being, this is the right way forward. As to the very end of it, I'll see when I get there, as some of it will depend on the final lift that I'll get - - but I will almost certainly NOT be walking all the way through Nice again, twice is enough for anyone !! Though I might be able to handle the Promenade des Anglais. I am certainly considering Nice > Monaco as a walk.

But it's all dynamic ; or rather I will just go to where the Camino leads me to.
 
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Day 402 - - Marseilles

I am in the Bouches-du-Rhône !!
JabbaPapa said:
a new pair of army boots
Click to expand...
Well, that didn't happen.

The boss man has retired, and one consequence is that they are now only open on half days. They remain equally hard to get on the phone though.

I have made my way to the northernmost edge of the city, seems like somewhere I can sleep out wherever I can find.

Then get back on track in the morning.

It does make getting my next pair more complicated, with a night sleeping outdoors somewhere, or some youth hostel or something.

Unless I can find some other solution somehow, but I don't think so.
 
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I was right, and the sleeping spots out here are plentiful. The Sun has just gone down, and with it has left the heat of the day.

I have been looking at my next steps, and yes tomorrow starts with some walking, but I am now seeing the various problems with the Provençal Way (I am not on it yet, right now I am DIY) in reverse, and it's a conundrum.

The historic route is of course massively tarmacked over - - but it is also inappropriate for my "hitching along the Camino" plan as it would just be 100% hitch-hiking and 0% Camino/Pilgrimage.

As to the "official" GR, well it's entirely incompatible with that plan too, for diametrically opposite reasons.

Then, past Fréjus, it's just pure touristic coastline. Been there, done that - - Three Times !!

So whatever comes next, it's going to be another change of pace.
 
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I do not know if I will ever walk another Camino de Santiago again, but there is one thing that I am seriously learning from this one :

If I ever do this again, I will hitch-hike from home to my starting point, and then hitch-hike back home from wherever after Santiago I ended it.

Slowly, and in no rush.

But that would be a very different Camino ; not this one.
 
I like your style
 
I am in Aix-en-Provence.

I am on the Provençal Way !!

I started very early this morning, at the onset of twilight, walked about an hour, then came across a bus stop with a bus to Aix ten minutes later.

This solves my itinerary conundrum - - The Camino Provides - - From here, hitch-hiking along the Camino is the clear way forward.

I am also getting very close to home, it may just be a few days left.

The weather and everything all feels like home anyway - - having said that, the past few days have been feeling a lot like my diagonal trek across the meseta between Burgos and Portugal in the summer of 2022. Not just the heat and the rough sleeping but also my own habits and attitude to it, notwithstanding this hitch-hiking rather than the lengthy walking that I did then. And some of the 2019 Catalan Way of my Stage 2.

But there's more than just that, and getting back now as I am towards the start of this Camino is a learning experience. I had always treated my journeys home as an integral part of my Caminos until I had to break this one up in stages for all those reasons, but to make this very long journey home in terms of both time and Pilgrimage is a revelation. It's not just a continuation of the Camino as Santiago > Saint-Palais was, nor Saint-Palais > Lourdes which is its own Pilgrimage, but it is something new that I have yet to understand.

Anyway, I've reached the point where I ended my stage 1 from injury and started my stage 2 a couple of months later. So I am getting very close now to both beginning and end.
 
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Day 403 - - Brignoles

I am in the Var !!

I screwed up, and I really hope there will be no negative consequences from it.

I have been given a massive spiritual kick up the posterior that I need now to finish this ASAP, and I should from that have been on a bus to Nice right now, but I misread the timetable so instead here I am.

I don't know what this is about, I only think and feel that it's serious, and that I need to get back home.

The one certain point is that with that bus I could have attended Mass tomorrow and finished the Pilgrimage properly and cleanly.

It is also clear anyway that I will be home tomorrow ; as far as this Camino is concerned, there will be a Day 405 when I'll finish it at the Mass. And then it will be done.

No doubt some of you who are reading this might think that it's rushed, but truth is that apart from a couple of instances in recent weeks when I have been slowed down for particular reasons and meetings, since Lourdes my constant impression has been that He wants me to hurry up back.

As to the potential change of pace I mentioned this morning, it's inevitable. People who give you a lift down here, well me anyway, give a faster and longer lift than expected, even off the motorway. So it's either zoom along hitch-hiking or zoom along by bus. Either way, it ends tomorrow.

Looks like rain tonight, so I hope I can find a better place than usual.
 
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Hope all is well back home and with you. May all good things and graces come to you from this amazing pilgrimage.
 
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JP,
Thank you for sharing your extraordinary journey here on the forum! Reading your daily updates was always exciting.

Have a good rest as you plan your 2025 route south to Rome.
 
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Thank you for all the kind words.

More later - - still have Day 404 to write about, plus the Religious end to it which will be Day 405 and The Last Day !! - - for the time being though, my legs and my body and my mind need to settle down. The legs especially. They still seem to need more beer today than the rest of me does.

But everything else needs settling down too.
 
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Day 404 + 52 -- Home -- Hooray !!

I am in the Alpes-Maritimes !!

The night in Brignoles was pretty horrid really, bad spot, sweaty, no shower, hot & humid and building up to storm weather. Plus I really do not like that place, it seems run-down and ghettoized.

I had missed the bus from misreading the timetable as previously noted -- but really, if not for the best, in hindsight I think it was for the least bad.

Somehow during this whole 2024 and the 2024 Stage 5 of the Home to Home, I was dodging rainfall like dodging bullets. Yesterday was no exception.

The weather was atrocious, with massive floods all over the place, but apart from being a little hot and bothered, I was tranquil. I was driven to the bus station by someone who insisted I take a bus, but if I had, I would have ended up completely drenched !!

The Sirocco wind was bringing in rain and rain and rain left and right, but not centre, and somehow I stayed high and dry, albeit in my own heat and sweat and pilgrim perfume. It reminds me of a day on the Le Puy route out of Navarrenx, a pleasant walk in light, cool showers and meeting pilgrims who had waded through floodwaters and/or been drenched to the bone by torrential rains, why them and not me ? LOL

There was more of that and worse down here, but the only way it affected me is that I could get my train because it came in 35 minutes late from the bad weather ... I was home at about 5:30 PM because of the rain and yet not bothered by it in the slightest.

I got some pâté and potato salad for dinner, shower, internet stuff and -- bed !! -- Hooray !!

-------------------

Anyway, in the morning of that day I was quite sick and fed up of Brignoles, and also realising just how exhausted I was -- I needed that bus out, and after finding a bakery for a light breakfast, I waited, then got the first bus to Draguignan instead of waiting in that place. I was falling asleep from exhaustion, but toughed it out for 2 hours until coffees, cooked ham, beers, and a bus to Saint-Raphaël (OUT of the rain, not drenched in it) -- whence that late train took me to Nice and Monaco, beers & home and etc. with the aforementioned pâté and potato salad.

-------------------

I felt like a pilgrim from the older travel journals, making a long but nevertheless not too slow journey home, on familiar routes already travelled, here and then there, strangers asking me, Are you going there or coming back ? A happiness on their faces from hearing the latter !! The kindness and help from them to get back home as quickly as possible -- no no, that's enough walking for you, you need your own home and your own bed !!

This is a religiosity of the Camino -- each looking after the other -- but as to the supposed stages of a Camino (Physical, Intellectual, Spiritual), it is something else. Transcendental and Mystical, as all that was previous becomes new again, and yet also renewed and also radically different.

And yet Physical, Intellectual, Spiritual all over again too !!

It's so sad that most pilgrims from across the oceans won't know what it is to journey home on the Camino itself, but then so sadly won't most in Europe either, from sheer lack of sufficient time and/or energy. Or they just don't live in Spain nor Portugal ...

I've noted Day 404 + 52 -- and whilst I call it an Intermediary, it is quite clear that my Way to Santiago and Lourdes this year has been an integral part of my main Camino -- so about 5,800K total I guess ? The Pilgrimage to Lourdes anyway this Summer along my Way to Santiago was in any case my main Pilgrimage to that Shrine of the three pilgrimages to Lourdes that this Way included. But yes, whilst I do keep that Unexpected Pilgrimage separate, it has its own Compostela, that's still total 456 Days in real terms, plus one last one to come. 457 Days, and I do not count the travel days between the stages.

-------------------

Apart from all that stuff though, this time I've done it -- no regrets, no frustrations, nothing "missed" along the Way ; Once I reached Oloron-Sainte-Marie and then Lourdes on my Way back from Spain, ahead was only some already trodden path ; and as to the variant routes, well I had passed through pretty much all of them either hitch-hiking in June or on earlier Caminos !!

It is accomplished.

Consummatum Est.

It's not like arriving in Compostela, Fátima, Lourdes, or Rome -- it's just home.

And yet a certain underlying quiet happiness feels terribly, terribly familiar !!! Some Pilgrims may know whereof I speak.
 
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Tomorrow I will attend Holy Mass at the Sanctuary to Saint Joseph whence I started this Pilgrimage and where I will end it.

I have been resting basically, as have my legs.

In 2024, this became a truly religious pilgrimage in so many ways !!
 
Day 405 +52 -- Church -- Consummatum Est

Well, it turned out to be a somewhat harder but also more interesting last day than expected.

I woke up with some pretty bad pain in my ankle, I must have twisted it somehow ; it's not a sprain, just a bad variant of the normal pain there.

So it was bus not walk down, though I have walked that stretch a few times in the past week, including on Saturday, so I haven't skipped it LOL -- perhaps that's what hit my ankle.

Also I have two blisters !! Seriously weird ones too, a larger one on the outside of my right hand / staff hand ring finger, and a tiny one next to it on the middle finger.

I guess that Some One up there wanted to give me a gentle reminder of the hardships endured, and ensure that my last day partook of them.

Anyway I hobbled on to church, and got my stamp on the mega-credencial. Just an ordinary Mass, though the children and some others weren't back from holiday yet, so the congregation was a bit smaller than usual. Some people here on holiday seeing the scallop shell wished me bonne route and even shook my hand, which was nice. I am glad though that I didn't make some dramatic entrance coming in with my cape and backpack from out of the rain, with a hefty pilgrim smell and all, but instead it was just quiet and normal. The Asian nun who has walked the Camino did have a 5 second chat with me, I'll tell her more about it later.

When it really hit me was at the end of Mass, walking away from the altar -- those first few steps were the start of my 2005 and my 2019-2024, and there I was walking them for the first time in over 5 years not on the Camino (or in patience before a restart) !! I was done !! Hooray !!

After that, my arrival felt not as intense as the arrival in Santiago does for me, but it was definitely comparable to my arrivals in Fátima or Burgos or Belorado or some other Camino places that are special to me, such as was reaching the westernmost point of this Camino (the church is its easternmost) near the lighthouse on the promontory West of Baiona in Portugal. I was filled anyway with the same sort of contentment as I've never had before coming home from a Camino, because this time to have done so was a part of the Camino. It is strange to feel this here, at home, as it is something I had only felt before away out there in distant pilgrimage destinations. But I guess it's true, every real pilgrimage leads you back home.

Except this time -- it truly has, in the most real sense.

So I did as I always do on those special arrivals, and despite the busted ankle and with my memories I lazed about with cool cervezas.

It was a beautiful sunny day, hot and dry.

Perfect hiking weather ...
 
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I really, really liked that last post as a final one in this very, very, very long thread -- but ...

The French peregrina and very good friend who first got me into this stuff back in late 1992 sent me an amazing and beautiful voice message, and it's such a wonderful book-end that the girl who started it all for me is the woman who at the end of it all so many decades later ended it with the simplest message of it all after this completion -- Buen Camino.
 
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