LIVE from the Camino Arles route this May

[Schubaba]

Dear Friends of the Camino,
I am preparing to walk my 3rd pilgrimage in May. (SJPDP to Santiago 2012, LePuy to Figeac 2014 ) , this year, Arles to Oloron Ste Marie. I walk alone and have met wonderful people from all over the world. This year I have some concern re walking Montpelier to Toulouse alone. Is there snow on mountain passes mid May ? is the pilgrim traffic increasing or am I likely to be a solitary pilgrim all day. Has anyone walked Arles route this year
? Any info would be appreciated.
Non French speaker from Northern California.

 

[mikevasey]

Hi Schubaba, non French speaker from Devon, UK here. I walked from Grabels, 9km past Montpellier, to Castres, jumped 4-5 sections to Toulouse and then walked from there to Lourdes and took another route over the Pyrenees, last May/ June.

I think you would have to be very unlucky to have snow on the route as it goes through the Haute Languedoc in May, usually it is quite mild, last year was unusually damp with cold winds. There was whole days I did not see any pilgrims while walking but would meet some in the Gites. Another pilgrim who posted on here and walked a week or two ahead of me did not see any others. Essential books to take are the Miam Miam Dodo guide for the Arles route, the format is easily understandable by non French speakers, and take the French Randonee topo guides, the 1st one from Arles to Toulouse and the next one on from there to the Pyrenees, the maps used are invaluable.

The Gites on the whole are quite good and plentiful, I ignored the recommend sections and eased my way over hills at the start, the trails are quite rocky and difficult in parts, save your long days for the sections next to the Canal du Midi and after Toulouse. The climb up from St Gervais sur Mare will take it out of you, try to break it up, I stayed at little departmental Gite about 2km off route, half way into it. In Angles I stayed in the private albergue because I heard the municipal one was a dump, next time I take my chances with the dump and maybe tidy it, the owner of the private one was trying to sell up and you could feel it, short of locking you in a dungeon it was not possible to be made more unwelcome, saying that the Gite itself was beautiful, so maybe if you could find a more tranquil inner place than me and the other pilgrim did it might be worth staying there.

After Toulouse( 2or 3 stages) Le Grange is a must stay Gite, the owners worked as Hospitaleros at Granon and have a strong connection to the Camino.

Its a beautiful route, some days are deep inside of me, cannot quite recall what I was experiencing but the remoteness and the wind blowing through the trees quitened me. The pilgrims I met who had walked the le Puy chemin said it did not stand out as being harder just less infrastructure, one Dutch pilgrim said it was like having Tunnel vision, being stuck on long forest tracks, while Le Puy he said you always had more open vision of the beautiful areas around you, maybe but it still felt special in the Haute Languedoc

Good luck and Bon Chemin

 

[Schubaba]

thank you for your encouragement, Mike. Among my most memorable times on LePuy route were walking alone the silent sacred forests after St Chely and past the gnarled ancient trees on Mt Aubrac. I'm not averse to using transportation in event of bad weather. I do not want to risk a fall or injury when traversing difficult trails alone and with little prospect of another pilgrim coming along in an hour or so. I'm trying to balance wisdom, trust I am held and courage.
The pictures are beautiful. Thank you for including then. Did you call ahead for reservations at Gite? Is it necessary with so few pilgrims?

 

[mikevasey]

I booked ahead for the 1st eight nights, it was coming up to a holiday period in France and the information I had picked up seemed to suggest that there would be quite a lot of French walking, they did but only on the weekend the holiday backed on to not the whole week. Several places I stayed at needed an advance call, MMD usually indicates which ones.
There was several pilgrims in around the stages I was on, they used the 1:100000 series of maps to find alternate routes to shorten days, I used the topo guide to shorten the day from Lodeve to the next Gite- Villa Issiates,I highly recommend staying there. You might have to take little steps across the Languedoc and it is possible, the day out of St Guillem le Desert will give you a feel for what's coming in the next days.


Top photo is the Villa Issiates Gite in the section after Lodeve, next one is L'ecrin d'Osely which is about a 1km out of Lodeve, a beautiful Gite but the proprietress does exquisite cooking of many courses which still send you to bed just as hungry as before you had eaten. The next photo is the Gite in Murat sur Vebre (I think) and the last one Le Grange