Chasing After Jess

Today was an exciting day as it marked the first day of our detour from the GR65 to the Cele Valley Variant, which follows the stunning Cele Valley in southern France. The route passes through charming villages and lush green meadows alongside the Cele River. Hikers on are treated to breathtaking views of limestone cliffs, historic churches, and rolling countryside. We were convinced by friends that this was absolutely the way to go, and we are so glad we did!

The only problem with taking a rest day in Figeac was that it was surprising how quickly we get used to comfort. We set out early at about 7:30am, heading towards the small town of Corn. The walk was once again spectacular, with picturesque paths winding through lovely countryside with wildflowers and roses.

Unfortunately, the weather knew we were coming and we had a little bit of rain – meaning the trusty ponchos came back out. But we were delighted to see a donativo pilgrims stop around this time to have a cup of hot coffee – so we let it slide!

After approximately 12km of walking this morning, we arrived at Béduer / Mas de la Croix which is the official split point for the Cele Valley Variant (also known as the GR651).

Our main issue during this variant – in the theme of feeling unprepared compared to our fellow pilgrims, was that we were did not have a guidebook. The Buen Camino app was great throughout the GR65, and did include the Cele Valley Variant on their GPS map – but they didn’t include the variant on their list of towns to stop in for accomodation and / or food. Monica and Nicky both had an excellent guidebook (I believe Dave Whitson’s – English!) and helped us out by sending us photos of some of the pages for the Cele Variant. However, this was still difficult to navigate, having to zoom in, flick pages, and not have it in front of us and easy to read.

What really saved us throughout most of our time on the GR65 and the GR651 variant, was the kindness of Bronwen Perry, her free guides and Facebook group where she answers questions with her expert knowledge. Her Facebook group “GR65 Via Podiensis: Walking the Le Puy Route in France” has many free guides under the “files” tab, particularly it one for the Cele Valley Variant and also one for the main GR65 which I used daily after our detour on the Cele. She is super responsive online, answering people’s questions and always shows patience and grace while doing so – thank you Bronwen!

The scenery in the Cele Valley and along the Cele river was truly breathtaking, with impressive cliffs and rock formations. This path was in better condition and was less crowded than the main route, and we were very pleased with our choice.

We reached our home for the night early, due to rested legs and a shorter distance. We stayed in Gite Antiquit’the, a self sufficient, quiet and clean guest home. Our hostess was truly wonderful, allowing us to check in early, and she even arranged the next night’s accomodation for us – which was the one part of the had struggled to find for.

After arriving I had a quick shower and decided to venture off for a quick look around this small town. Although there was not much going on here, I saw some beautiful buildings, gardens, streams and even two caves which I couldn’t find quite figure out how to get to!

We shared the house with 6 French pilgrims, but for the first time we really didn’t socialise all too much. The hostess, Martine, had prepared the meal already, allowing pilgrims to eat dinner when they wanted. We aren’t sure why we were so tired, maybe due to the loud street in Figeac, but we ate dinner at about 3:30pm and were both in bed asleep by 5:00pm!!!

Truthfully, I’m not sure what my goal was here – whether this was supposed to be a nice afternoon nap or the beginning of the nights rest, but this sleep ended up being both great and bad. The great part was I remember getting warm and toasty and cocooning myself and while I fell into a deep sleep. The bad part was, after a 9 hour sleep (!!!) we woke up around 2am fully rested, thinking “what now??”

The sun wasn’t due to rise until at least 6:00am, so we sort of had to spend hours killing time on our phones. Thankfully, I fell back asleep around 4:50am and managed to sneak a last hour of sleep in before what would be one of my favourite days on this entire trail!

Bon Chemin

Jess