How man days would it take to walk from le Puy to ST. Jean Pied du Port?
Hi Nathanael,
Stating the obvious here but it depends on how fit you are, the distances you want to do (or are capable of sustaining over several weeks) and how many rest/sightseeing days you will need. The French "Chemin de Compostelle" map set/booklet (recommended!) by Michelin breaks the route into 32 stages but I feel its a bit ambitous given the distances /elevation gains for some of the stages. Bearing in mind the 32 days does not not allow for rest days averaging 23km per day or about 26km/day if you take 3 rest/tourist days.
The Le Puy Route is beautiful but a number of stages (particularly during the first two weeks) are surprisingly challenging (doable but easy to overestimate how far you can walk). For that reason I feel a realistic minimum timeframe is no less than 36 days (including 3 or 4 rest days) but you unless you are very fit and not prone to fatigue you may find you are pushing yourself too much particularly the first two weeks. Personally I would recommend extending it about a week i.e. allowing about 6 weeks (about 42 days including about 4 rest days) to complete the full chemin from Le Puy to SJPdeP and allow additional time if you need to allow for travel days either side of your trip. 42 days (including 4 rest/touristy days) means you would need to average about 20km/day. Can't remember how long I took exactly but I think it was about 42 days and within that I had all the rest days I needed and was able to ease into it at the start.
By the way this is a brilliant planner for the route:
http://www.godesalco.com/plan/podense - you can break the route down into stages and produce elevation maps from it. It shows which villages/towns have accommodation (not completely up to date but its generally accurate). At any rate its really useful for getting an idea of how many days it would take you or for just getting an idea of the type of terrain you will be coming across day by day.
Hope that helps!
