At breakfast this morning, a French pilgrim told us according to his research, after Figeac, which is a 2 days’ walk away, it will be no more climbing. All flat valley, nice and easy. No more up and down. I smiled at him. It’s amazing how there is always hope on the camino that soon the trail will somehow flattens itself out to give us poor pilgrims a break. I wrote down his name, telephone number, social security number and also his mother’s maiden name. I told him if in 2 days’ time, I do not get a flat trail as promised, I will track him down!

We all stayed around breakfast table lamenting about the hard hike we did yesterday, we asked the gite owner if there’s an easier way today to get to Conques without so much hard work? She just gently told us: “if it’s not hard, it would not be a pilgrimage! Come on, you all can do it. Stop complaining and get out and walk”!

We all got her message loud and clear and we all buckled up our backpacks and head out for today’s hike to Conques.

Ed summed up today as this: a huge fat burning day. And he is absolutely correct.

First we started out as we always had done before by getting our picnic lunch for the day. We looked for the sign for the bakery. It seemed like all the commerce and stores were uphill, straight up the hill for one km the opposite way of where we should be going. 1 km up then 1 km back down. We looked at each other. Decision time. Ok no food then. The next village with food will be 2 hours away. We headed out with water only and no food for the start, hoping to get food in Espeyrac, the village 2 hours away.

We started climbing as soon as we got out of the village. Climbing up and up. We got a very good pace. Feeling refreshed from a good night sleep and a good breakfast, we were in very good mood and making very good progress. Then we came to a small farm house, with a whole bunch of chicken. Ed loves chicken. He took a lot of pictures. Making chicken noises, having fun with the hen and rooster roaming inside the fenced yard. A French pilgrim came by. She joined in, it’s was a lot of fun. Then we head on. Right there was a y fork in the road. We took the road marked with red and white blaze, with a sign over the blaze GR 6. We happily marched on, in company with our new friend. We chatted for a bit then she said bye and marched on as she is a pretty fast hiker. We walked on through woods, forest, trail lined with chestnut trees. The trail was mild, then descended and we made really good time. One should always wonder, when one has a lot of good time and the trail is very nice and downhill, one should be very suspicious. We walked for an hour, when we saw our French friend walking toward us. She did not look too happy. What happened? What’s wrong? We asked her. She said she was at the other top and got to a village and a local man told her this is not the right way! We are going back to Golinhac! It’s a roundabout way. We need to be heading the other way! Wow what a disaster! When you are walking and you have to backtrack, it’s not a lot of fun! Did I say earlier we were walking with a good pace going downhill? That means if we backtrack we would have to go back uphill!!! Ahhhh what a disaster!!!! We did not have any their option but backtrack our way to the y fork where we took the wrong turn. So we walked back. We started to get a bit hungry. We started to look around the trail. First we got some pears. Delicious. We walked on. We got to a plum tree. All wild fruit trees on the road. Ed whacked down 8 plums. 4 each. We ate the plums and walked on. The fruits kept us going for a while. Then we got some apples. Then more black berries on the road.

At this time we met two very young French girls coming down to hike from Paris. They are walking a short section for one week. They kept us company for a while. We talked about Paris, the shopping districts, les grands magasins, la Madeleine, the opera. We got some wild grapes on the road. Each of us got a bunch of black grapes, sweet and tasty. We munched on the grapes and walked on. More talk about Odeon, st Michel. They kept us company with great conversation. We finally got the Espeyrac at 12 noon. We got to the entrance of the village as the church bell struck noon time.

At noon time, all the shops closes. This is the village we were supposed to get to at 10 am but we were lost taking the wrong turn. Now it’s past shopping time. We had no choice but move on. We visit the church of st Peter. Took some pictures and walked on. Right outside the village, there was an apricot tree just waiting for us. It was a short tree, just my height, full of fruits hanging down to the ground. We stood there and ate our lunch with ripe apricots. Then we walked on. Next village is one hour away. We got to synergues at 1pm. All the shops were still closed. Which meant we still were out of luck for food. There were a bar open. We got each an ice cream stick. We filled up our water container and walked on. We still had a long day ahead of us walk go to Conques. To cheer us up, the bar owner’s son played done music on his accordion to send us onward. 4 more hours of walk. We marched on. The ice cream helped a bit. We kept grazing on fruit we picked up from the trail. There were plenty of fresh fruits for us to graze on, like the cows in fields. We were now “one” with the cows, eating what ever we can collect from the trees.

We walked on and on, getting closer and closer to Conques. I had been looking forward to getting into Conques and staying at the Abbey of st Foy. It’s a beautiful monastery perched on the side of the mountain.

The sign says 1 km to Conques. The path narrowed to a tight trail and for the last hurrah, we were rewarded with a steep decent through the wood, rocky and slippery. We carefully made our way down the trail, eagerly looking forward to sign of this famous village. Nothing. More walking. Nothing. Not a sign of life. We were worried for a bit asking ourselves: did we make another mistake? Are we list again? Another wrong turn? We checked the map. Checked the GPS. It all looked like we were on track. Conques is straight ahead. Another 500 meters. We walked in slowly. The rocky trail was difficult. We were tired. Hungry. Sore feet. Aching body. Seeing double. And no sign of Conques anywhere. Finally a sign on the right: Conques. We had arrived!

A magnificent sight! Well worth all the pain and sweat of an all day’s walk of back breaking ascent and toes crushing descents. Sitting on the edge of the river Dourdou, Conques seems to hang over a cliff of the mountain side surrounded by mountains and forrest. The setting almost surreal. It is certainly worth it’s rank as one of the most beautiful village of France.

The church of Sainte Foy is a Unesco world heritage site. It had been attracting pilgrims since the 9th century and is a very popular stop on the camino since the easiest days of the pilgrim trail. The cobbled narrow village streets are lined with beautiful medieval houses that are just like post card pictures. There are just no words to described Conques. The amazing thing on this walk is as we arrived to Estaing we thought Estaing was beyond words to describe its beauty. Then we reach Conques and we found an even more beautiful village! There is just no way of describing this medieval village. It has to be experienced by a visit in person. I can only say this: if you ever have a chance to be in The Aveyron region, don’t miss a visit to Conques. It is well worth it and you won’t regret it.

Conques has its origins, like many of the beautiful villages of France, in pilgrims. A hermit called Dadon settled here in the 8th century, and soon attracted a group of Benedictine monks to his side. One of those ‘obtained’ the relics of St Foy from Agen and brought them to the monastery, where they soon attracted pilgrims due to their apparent ability to cure blindness. Soon Conques was a major stop-off point on the pilgrim route to Santiago de Compostela.

Conques abbey itself was built in the 10th – 12th centuries, and the church and cloisters have an international and deserved reputation for their artistic merit. The tympanum (carved ‘picture’ above the main doorway) of the Last Judgement is considered to be one of the major art works of the 12th century. It really is incredible. There are 124 figures in the carvings many depicting your ghoulish fate if you are unlucky enough to go to hell! Surrounding the main carving are a few figures known as ‘the curious ones’ who look like little children peeking out from under a blanket at the scenes below.

The castle of Conques has a tall octagonal tower. This reaches slightly higher than the octagonal tour of the Abbey and was built like by the original owner in an attempt to put his importance higher than that of the church. The large number of windows are also a symbol of status as taxes were levied on the number of windows and so only rich people could afford to have lots of windows.

The Saint Foy abbey is officially designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site as part of the pilgim path to Santiago de Compostela.

The main treasure in Conques’ very impressive Treasury is the statue of Saint Foy. This is a reliquary which houses the top of Saint Foy’s skull. It is known as ‘the Majesty’ and is a gold-plated statue of St Foy seated on a throne. It is encrusted with precious stones which were donated by many different pilgrims to the shrine.The Majesty is the only preserved example of pre-Roman reliquary statues and is considered one of the top five medieval gold-plated treasures in Europe.

There are many other reliquaries in the treasury as well as a processional cross.

Once a year on the Sunday following the 6th October there is a large religious procession in Conques and the Majesty and the processional cross are carried at the head of the procession.

Walking down from the Abbey we reached the asymetric bridge known as the pilgrim’s bridge dating back to medieval times which is also a UNESCO World heritage site as part of the pilgrim route.

We checked into the Abbey for our night sleep tonight. Tired and hungry, we were greeted by a group of men and women who are voluntary workers at the Abbey. First they are all a very very nice group of people. Greeting us with a huge smile, they offered us a drink with choices of cold water, hot water, lemonade, plain water. Wow how nice! They must know we had just hiked down the one mile stretch of rocks leading down to the Abbey.

Then next it’s the checking in routine for pilgrims. Walking sticks must go inside the round container inside the abbey’s center courtyard. To our horror, the container already has about 70 pairs of walking sticks. And they all look alike! Ed quickly tied his sticks to mine making our set a 4 sticks set. We hope they stay together. The Abbey has a max capacity of housing 90 pilgrims and it is a full house tonight.

Next we need to take off our boots. The shelves are lined up with 80 pairs of boots and by end of the day it will be 90 pairs of boots. Ed quickly grabbed 4 plastic cups used to serve drink and sticks the cups inside each of our shoes. It’s our way of marking our shoes. If somebody wears them by mistake at least they will see the cups and may be they will rethink and hopefully won’t walk away with our boots.

Next our backpacks are put inside a big plastic back. We still don’t understand this plastic bag covering, but that’s the rule of the house. Then we now are ready for the registration process. The first part of the checking in almost feel like a sci fi movie when you just arrived from an outer planet and you are sprayed with some kind of disinfectant. Anyway, I am sure this is all for the cleanliness and protection of all the pilgrims to guard against the spread of bed bugs or some kind of contagious diseases?

We now get to sit down across a very nice looking lady. She reminds me of our dear Aunt Gerry! Very sweet with a nice and welcoming smile. She volunteers to work for the Abbey. They are all volunteers here. She checked our names. Kondrot. She goes down the list. No Kondrot. Can you spell it again? Kondrot. Still no Kondrot. I said I resented a private room. All private rooms have checked in! Every body are accounted for.

Let’s check the dormitory. Up and down the list. No Kondrot. We are full tonight. What are we to do. There is no way we can walk to the next village. We are beat. We are hungry. And we will sleep here tonight.

So I proceeded to show her my itinerary. It says here I am going to sleep at the Abbey tonight and also their phone number. Now it gets serious. I have documentation showing I “intend” to sleep here. Of course there is no confirmation. No email of any sort. The Abbey does not even have booking online through the Internet. You just make a phone call, talk to somebody, give them your name and your date of arrival and they tell you “it’s noted” and you hope they “noted” it correctly. As in our case, it’s noted somewhere but we somehow are not on the list of arrivals for today!

Well we are now looking at each other not knowing what to do. Suddenly a miracle happens! A cancellation. A family of four had just called to cancel. They can not arrived tonight. I guess they could not make it down the steep rocky descend! We now have a room with 2 sets of bunk beds! The nice lady explains: one bed is 10 euros, 4 beds is 40 euros. There is a private bath. I said quickly “I will take it”. Done! We got a place to sleep tonight!

Then she asks me: do you want me to put other pilgrims into your room? That way it will save you money. Ed quickly says: I snore, nobody wants to be in the room with me! And he makes his loud snoring sound through his nose. They all laughed at his comment. They all joke around “Oh no, let’s hope he does not wake the whole Abbey up tonight!”

Then we got sent over to another table. This lady is in charge of collecting our money. Then we went up to our room. A very nice room with 2 sets of bunk beds. Windows onto the church across the narrow walkway. We also have to pay one euro for each sheet and towel. We took our shower and got ready for dinner. I am so tired today that for the first time I do not wash our clothes as we arrive. The last bit of energy I have left, I have to take a nice clean shower. The only reason for this cleanliness is I feel like I am going to faint soon and if I do pass out, I want the French rescue people to find me all nice and clean!

Today was by far the longest and hardest walking day for the two of us. Each day is an amazingly different flavored adventure. Just as we think it can’t get any more difficult than what we just did, some how the camino manages to throw us a different punch. A wrong turn, a closed shop, a fall, a bull encounter, a bee fight. Just as we think this village is the most beautiful, we arrived into another even more amazingly magnificent village. So far the trip has been truly an amazing experience.

It’s day 12 and we are happy to report we are not having any blister nor injury. It’s a very good sign. No major aches nor pain. We are doing just as fine as we could hope for.

I feel like I am a Camino Le Puy expert now. I think I can give a course in how to successfully hike (not walk) the camino Le Puy:
Lesson 1: how to climb straight up. No switch back Lesson 2: how to descend straight down. No switch back.
Lesson 3: managing straight up hill with large sheets of rocks.
Lesson 4: downhill with rocks
Master level: rocks in rain
Expert level: hiking hungry and lost

And for couples only, those who have saved their 401K and all their vacation time for a second honeymoon or a trip of a lifetime on the camino Le Puy, I have a special coaching class for couples: how to stay married after the first time you get lost. I can assure you, when you walk and you get lost, it is always the man’s fault. He is supposed to know the direction, even if the wife walks ahead and leads the way!

We are now settled into the two lower bunk beds. The Abbey is serene and quiet. We are going to get a very deep and very good night sleep.

Ed is going through the day’s petitions for prayers.

Until tomorrow
Bon Chemin!