After two weeks of walking I'm back from the start of my camino. What a great two weeks I had! Not being overly spiritual I have to say I was impressed by what I found along the way: nice people, beautiful scenery and a great appreciation of the effort people put into their faith some hundreds of years ago.

This first part of the route started in Le Puy en Velay in France and ended in Conques, some 200 km further southwest. I managed to average around 18 km a day (which isn't a whole lot, but considering the terrain provided an adequate challenge) with a pack and a wrong pair of shoes. The shoes I used were my alpine boots and were way too stiff for the flats that I often encountered, thus overloading my heels and ankles, which still hurt...

I was stunned to find small villages along the route, with only a handful of houses, centered around a magnificent church. How could such a small amount of people (most of them would have been humble farmers) gather the funds and energy to build these things? It really is quite astounding.

I can thoroughly recommend doing the walk, even if one isn't religious (like me). Pictures will follow, since I don't have them sorted yet... but will post them soon enough.

Good to be back though in the comfort of my home and the ability to use the net once again to check the glade!

Thanks for sharing, I would love to see pictures.

My brother-in-law is currently hiking the pacific crest trail, which extends along the west coast of the US from Mexico to Canada. He has been going for 101 days and is curently on the Oregon Washington Border.

He stoped by a month or so ago on his way up and had some great storeis, including getting his pack stollen (from underneath his sleaping head) by a bear.

I am very envious of those who can take the time to do these hikes.

Ender, 101 days of walking and still going strong, what a feat! Sounds like one hell of an experience. A friend of mine went on honeymoon a while back, sea kayaking up the western coast of canada, from vancouver to anchorage... how people can do these types of thing I really don't know. Infinite respect though!

Well as promised here are some pics of my two week walk through france. My route looked similar to this. However, this isn't a real representation of what I did, due to the fact that most of the route was on trails and not on roads. All in all a beautiful and relaxing experience, which I can thoroughly recommend!


A church in the early morning. I can see why they hold morning masses, simply stunning.


Conques, a beautiful medieval village.


Old church bells


Le Puy, the starting point


Morning dew. Check out all the spiderwebs!


Some of the route


Some of the many cows

Man, some very beautiful pictures. I have to make sure my wife is not around next time I look at them, because she will most definitely be buying plane tickets first chance.