I love travelling and I love walking, so what better way to see a country than by leisurely walking through the countryside and stopping each night in a different village to be explored. Having walked in Tuscany and Spain, I started researching a new destination and came across a website called “I Love Walking in France”. That’s where I found that I could walk the earlier part of the Spanish Camino in France. This is a well-trodden, centuries-old route with frequent villages and towns.
The Chemin de Saint Jacques (in French) or Camino de Santiago (in Spanish) starts in Le Puy-en-Velay in France, crosses the French/Spanish border at Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port and ends in Santiago de Compostela in Spain. This has been a pilgrimage route since the 10th century and, in those days, being on the pilgrims’ route was enough to make a town rich.
The “I Love Walking in France” guidebook splits the Chemin de Saint Jacques into five stages. I chose the second – from Aumont-Aubrac to Figeac – because it looked the prettiest and included three villages (Saint-Côme-d’Olt, Estaing and Conques) named among the most beautiful in France.
My fellow walker, an ex-South African, lives in Australia. We had lengthy planning meetings on WhatsApp. We booked accommodation on booking.com as much as possible; however, for some villages, we had to approach places directly as they weren’t on the booking site and we got their names from “I Love Walking in France”.
As this was a self-guided walk, we could choose how far to walk each day and where to stop each night. We are not hostel people (dormitory-style stops for walkers along the route are known as ‘gîte d’étapes’), so we only chose towns where we could get separate rooms with a private bathroom. Our longest walk was 30km and the shortest was 8km. You can choose where you want to spend more time, and depending on the terrain, how far you think you can walk in a day.
There are services to take the luggage from place to place so you don’t have to carry everything on your back. We used La Malle Postale, who were excellent — each time we arrived at our destination, our luggage was there waiting for us. They have a weight restriction of 13kg, which we cursed when packing but blessed when we arrived at our lodgings to find three flights of steep, narrow stairs waiting for us. We also used their bus service from Decazeville to Figeac, planned in advance as we didn’t have enough walking days to walk the last section.
The route follows the GR 65, the Grande Randonnée 65, maintained by the French Hiking Federation and very well sign-posted. The familiar yellow shell with a blue background denotes the Saint-Jacques/Santiago pilgrimage route. It’s almost impossible to get lost.
We were walking in south-central France. It was spring (early May) and the countryside was gorgeous. There was a profusion of wildflowers – daffodils, daisies, buttercups, hyacinths, violets, poppies – swathes of them in the open grasslands. The gorse showed as large splashes of yellow on the rocky hillsides. The trees were sporting bright green leaves, and flowers too – sour cherry, chestnut, hawthorn, linden and apple blossoms. The path ahead would lead us into green tunnels or through large granite outcrops, alongside the river Lot, down steep descents and through forest glades. There was constant birdsong, and in the cattle region of Aubrac, cow bells. Low stone walls covered with green moss kept the animals from wandering.
The granite massif of the Aubrac area where we started gave way to the limestone cliffs bordering the Lot River valley. There was a lot of climbing and descending, but on balance the route was downhill – often steeply so. I used hiking poles and they were very useful – steadying me down narrow rocky paths and helping me vault over mud-puddles. We only had one day of rain but it was enough to create muddy walking conditions.
The villages and towns we walked through and stayed in were charming, with medieval dwellings still in use. Most of them could trace their settlements back to the 9th century and even to Roman times. In Conques, Estaing, Espalion and Figeac, we saw medieval stone and timber-framed buildings that people are still living in. The buildings have been beautifully preserved.
In Conques we visited the imposing Abbaye Sainte-Foy, built in the 11th and 12th centuries. The interior is spare and unadorned but magnificent in its proportions and volume. There was a free music recital the evening we were there – a flautist and a guitarist playing haunting music in a hallowed setting. The abbey’s history is colourful. In the 9th century, the monks decided they needed valuable relics to attract pilgrims, so they planted a monk in a nearby monastery at Agen for ten years until he’d gained enough trust to steal the relics of Saint Foy. He brought them back to Conques — turning it into a rich pilgrimage destination. The relics are still there and we viewed them in the museum.
In Espalion we stayed in Le Vieux Palais (the old palace), a 16th-century fortified residence on the Lot River converted into apartments — the pink sandstone exterior with its pepper-pot turrets made this a fairytale experience. In Sénergues we stayed in L’Ancien Poste (the old Post Office), a stylish bed and breakfast run by an English couple who serve fresh eggs straight from the chicken coop. In Figeac we had two nights in the Hôtel des Bains, right on the banks of the Célé river, named for the thermal springs and spa baths popular there in the 19th century.
Our interaction with other walkers was limited as we do not speak much French – nearly all the people walking were French. One day a young chap caught up to us and started chatting. He was a 20-year-old Swiss-German, glad to speak English as he knew little French. He had walked from his home in Switzerland – 800km to that point – and intended to walk all the way to Santiago de Compostela, about another 1,300km, carrying everything on his back and camping wherever he could.
The food in France was wonderful. Wherever we ate, whether in a bar or brasserie or restaurant, the food was excellent – tasty and fresh. The signature dish of the region is aligot, a stretchy, cheesy mashed potato dish. At the start of our walk, in Aumont-Aubrac, we were excited to find that the restaurant attached to our hotel, La Gabale, was linked to a Michelin star. It is the casual brasserie offshoot of chef Cyril Attrazic’s two-Michelin-star restaurant, simply called Cyril Attrazic, which is also in the village. I had an asparagus starter that was the most delicious thing I have ever eaten.
Along the route, there were generally places to have coffee and a pastry and we took advantage whenever we found one. At one of these stops, we met a young Frenchman who had lived in East London (now KuGompo City) for a while, studying journalism. He was excited to talk to us and started the conversation with “Lekker” (in a French accent).
We came across a coffee place in a tiny wooden hut in the middle of nowhere, called Camino Gourmand. The enterprising owner had a generator to fire up his proper coffee machine, and the “gourmand” name was true – he baked delicious cakes with his little gas stove. I had a fabulous chocolate cake that was still warm from the oven.
Then there was the little old lady who set up shop on a bench outside the village and sold fresh crêpes to walkers. It was the best business model – no one could resist a little old lady in a housecoat and old cardigan. When I asked her if I could take a photograph, she posed happily with her stick in true pilgrim style.
GOOD TO KNOW
Taxis need to be organised in advance. The French take their public holidays seriously — most shops are closed and taxis are unavailable.
You need to carry cash as some establishments will not accept cards, even in towns. ATMs are available and work with South African cards.
Few people in this area speak English. You will need Google Translate and therefore data on your phone — I bought an eSim from Airalo. There was good signal in most places.
You need a day for travelling on either side of the walk. To get to Aumont-Aubrac from Paris is a train ride followed by a bus ride. We missed the bus but managed to get a taxi for the 2-hour trip from Clermont-Ferrand to Aumont-Aubrac. To get back to Paris we went by train from Figeac to Toulouse and then Air France to Paris.
Michelin Guide 161, Chemins de Compostelle, is very useful for relief maps and distances. We bought it in France.
