Chemin de St Jacques/Camino de Compostela

Sunday, Oct 20th, 2013

 As we walked along approaching the Pyrenees today, we discussed how this walk has differed from the Camino frances in Spain. On both walks, the people that we've met have been so important in making the trip memorable. But they have come, for the most part, from different cohorts. 

In Spain, 10 years ago, our relationships were largely with other pilgrims, those we walked alongside or crossed paths with on multiple occasions. Perhaps this was due to our very limited Spanish.  Or perhaps because the pilgrim infrastructure is set up differently in Spain (larger numbers of pilgrims, larger gites, restaurant meals). 

While we have developed some wonderful friendships here in France, we have also been very fortunate to be able to chat more with the locals.  Staying mostly in family-run gites has opened up a world of friendly folks who are very proud of their local cuisine and culture. Every one has shared time with us, to sit and chat with us or offer us local fare or to answer our questions. And they have been proud to showcase the regional specialties. 

Tonight we are staying at la Ferme Arlania, our first Basque Chambra d'hote.  The farm house was built before the revolution in the late 1700's and this family have run the farm for more than 4 generations.  They raise les Blondes d'Acquitaine, big brown cows and calves of which they currently have about 25 females with calves. But their main business is sheep and they produce both lamb and milk for cheese. We had a tour of the farm, very informative, and saw one barn with 250 pregnant sheep chowing down, and another small barn with ewes and 10 lambs just born today. Our meal included tomatoes and peppers from the garden, homemade pâté and sausage, cassoulet, sheep cheese (served with prune jam, a local custom) and a homemade flan. We got answers to some of our questions about regional farming practices, shared some laughs and hopefully they now have an understanding of the importance of their welcome in our walk. 

 

Our farm hosts with Wendy at La Arlania 

We remember Nadine who served us duck hearts and chestnuts, along with local seasonal wines; Nicolas who played his banjo for us; Stephane who sat with us on his patio to chat during aperitifs and then served us a great meal; Brigitte who has carried on the work her mother started over 35 years ago taking in pilgrims and feeding them a wonderful farm meal; the host and hostess at the Gite at Aumont Aubrac who presented a dinner each night with such a flourish, him whipping up the local specialty of aligot, the potato and local cheese dish, and explaining how he makes it and the history and then she sings Ultrea, the pilgrim song, every night of the week for a roomful of hungry pilgrims;  and the two young mums who dished up dinner for multiple pilgrims while their children played nearby.  How lucky we were.

Polly and Stephane at Miradoux Gite.

People are the reason why this is the experience that it is.  We are still in touch with Carla and Paul from Brazil, Andrea from Germany; people we became friends with when we walked to Santiago 10 years ago.  And now we have met Sue and Polly from Tasmania who we will keep in touch with.  At home in Victoria we have a group of friends we call our Camino junkies.  We get together often and have a wonderful time.  All of us have walked at some point and most of our group more than once.  

People at home ask us why we would want to walk 730 km in the south of France. This is why!