Le Puy Camino, GR-65
In April my friend, who was 70, and I (71 then) traveled to Lyon, France, then took a train to Le Puy en Velay. We hiked the GR65 from Le Puy to Moissac (250 miles, 400km) in 18 days ending on April 24th. That part of France is hilly, and our total elevation gain was 6100 meters, which is a daily average of 340 meters (1100 ft.) up and back down. My backpack weighed 11 kg, because I brought many more clothes than I should have. Next time I'll try to have no more than 8 kg. We used the Miam Miam Dodo guides (in French) which I recommend.
It was a great adventure. We stayed in gîtes, except for one night at the St. Foy Monastery in Conques. If you're thinking about this hike, here's my recommendations:
I would not walk the Le Puy Camino alone, if you prefer to have company. We did not pass many other hikers, and walked alone except for four days with two French women.
If I were doing this again, I’d start at St.-Côme-d'Olt, and skip the first 6 days from Le Puy. That part was difficult, but also required warm clothes that we only needed those 6 days. My backpack weighed 23# and I needed only 15# afterwards. Also, this would skip the 3500 ft., single-day descent to St.-Côme-d'Olt.
The countryside is interesting, but not spectacular. The landscape after Limogne-en-Quercy (our Day 14) wasn’t very scenic for a couple of days, and it was hot also, especially when climbing. Still, not unbearably hot since it was only April.
Finding potable water was not a problem, but during our first week several spigots were shut off probably to prevent freezing. I never carried more than one liter.
If you stay at a gîte that offers LL & SL, they will normally do it for you, or show you how to operate the machines. Several gîtes had Siemens dryers that used some kind of desiccant for moisture removal. They have no exhaust vent and don’t work very quickly. But, after the our first week it was usually feasible to line dry light fabrics outdoors. Drying outdoors was much slower than Spain.
Except for one day, we asked out Camino friends, or our gîte owners, to make reservations for the next night, including half pension. This gives the next day's gîte time to plan the evening meal. Most of the restaurants in small villages are closed until more hikers/pilgrims show up. In 17 nights on the chemin we ate dinner in restaurants only two times.
The gîte dinners were better than the pilgrim dinners in Spain. Other than the first three gîtes that served sausages (which we liked), we never had the same main course for the other 12 dinners at gîtes. Usually, dinner was soup, bread, wine, salad, meat, cheese with more bread, and dessert.
Except for three larger towns, the mini-markets and boulangeries were closed for lunch, so we mostly bought something for lunch before we left each morning. We tried to spend the night in towns where we could buy something for lunch.
We missed the footpath signs twice and walked about 20 miles to our destination those days. However, we found the French to be very helpful when we needed directions back to the route. Bon Voyage!
