Picking up the Vézelay route after Tours

[pudgypilgrim]

I started from Paris via Chartres last year, but had to return home from Cloyes-sur-le-Loir with a broken foot. I hope to go back and pick up where I left off, but I've been thinking that I might like to switch over to the Vézelay sometime after Tours. It's not that I dislike the prospect of les landes, just that I'm more comfortable with averaging about 20-25 km a day because I'm slow, and there are a lot of very long stages the further south you go on the Voie de Tours because there just isn't any place else to stop.

I know I could walk the GR 46 (I think that's the number) from Tours to Chateauroux, but is there another way to connect the two that would be better? It seems like it's ~100km from one route to the other no matter which towns you try to join up.

 

[Felipe]

Well, not a standard plan...
There is a tourism bureau in Tours that seems well informed, and an official "randonnée" association
Provincial guidebooks are available here
Or just take a train...
Bonne chance!

 

[Desmond Walsh]

I started from Paris via Chartres last year, but had to return home from Cloyes-sur-le-Loir with a broken foot. I hope to go back and pick up where I left off, but I've been thinking that I might like to switch over to the Vézelay sometime after Tours. It's not that I dislike the prospect of les landes, just that I'm more comfortable with averaging about 20-25 km a day because I'm slow, and there are a lot of very long stages the further south you go on the Voie de Tours because there just isn't any place else to stop.

I know I could walk the GR 46 (I think that's the number) from Tours to Chateauroux, but is there another way to connect the two that would be better? It seems like it's ~100km from one route to the other no matter which towns you try to join up.

I started from Bordeaux in September 2013 and took 10 days to reach St Jean on the way to Santiago. I used the inland route first stopping at Gradignan in the southern suburbs of Bordeaux, then Barp, Belien-Bebliet, Moustey, Labouheyre, Onesse-Laharie, Taller, Dax,Cagnotte, Arancon, St Palais and finally St Jean Pied-Port. There is always accommodation (generally municipal gite) in a daily 20 to 25 km range. The sign posting is excellent thanks to the local Les Amis du St Jacques Association. The Les Landes scenery is a little monotonous until you reach the foothills of the Pyrennes after Dax. I found the flat terrain a wonderful conditioning exercise for the later climbs. I only met 4 other pilgrims heading for Santiago in sharp contrast to the numbers staring from St Jean. This route was also part of the medieval route from Bordeaux. At that time Les Landes was a much feared section due to difficult swampy terrain and bandits but it was transformed into a forest in the 18th century. Most of the forest still remains but thankfully the bandits seemed to have disappeared.

 

[pudgypilgrim]

Thanks, Felipe and Desmond.

Desmond, I'm not worried about monotonous scenery--I'm from S FL and sandy pine land is about the biggest luxury going around here. I don't even mind the 'weedy fields' others have mentioned, as long as the nettles aren't more than knee high.

I was actually thinking more about from Tours to Bordeaux as far as long stretches. I found that even on the short distance I walked last Sept a lot of the listed accommodations were not available. Either a hotel had been renovated into just a restaurant or the gite owner had closed up and gone walking because September. And I met a surprising number of locals who had walked to Santiago and back and they all said it's pretty hard after Tours.

I'm glad to know the local amis are doing good marking. Eure-et-Loir was outstanding that way and their association would definitely have found me a place to stay if I'd needed to ask, but once you get to the next département, Cher-et-Loir, for instance, the instructions are just to follow the GR655, with an implied "and don't let the door hit ya on the way out." I found that very few of the accommodations listed on their site were actually available, so it's nice to know to know that Charente-Maritime and others are doing better.

 

[Ray Boneski]

You guys have totally piqued my interest about walking from Bordeaux to SJPDP. I like the idea of the warm-up on flat land before entering the Pyrenees, and giving it a go on the French side of the border. Thanks.

 

[Marion-SantiagoInLove]

Why not if you feel like it

The Tour and Vezelay routes are secondary route to Santiago in France, with very few pilgrims. There are accommodations, but I give you that the one that do exist are sometimes very hard to find. It's not a matter of "fend for yourself and don't bother", rather that France is quite behind in digital presence, information and updates on the Camino... Maybe one of the reason for that is most Camino association members are seniors and so maybe not tech-friendly. (Which is not true for all seniors, of course! )

Here's a page for info about the Tour route and here another about the Vezelay route. On both pages, you can ask for detailed info (with accommodations): hit "demandez notre documentation détaillée", fill up the form and check the boxes for the routes you're interested in (don't check too many or they won't send you anything). It's in French, but manageable to understand and very precious to have around.

I think the trick will be to leave the Tour route and catch the Vezelay route at the right spot. It's so easy to miss the right turn!
Here's a map of your options and here's a page to explore them. The closer GR after Tours are the GR46 and the GR48. For these 2 and all the other GR you can see on the map of the first link, there are no guides.
If you know how to read maps, I'd advise you to get a topographical map of the region Easy to find, or here's a great website to DIY: catch-screen, paste in document, print. (Be sure you're on a topo map: "carte" icon in the top-left corner, "voir tous les fonds de carte" button, select "carte topographique IGN").
If you can't read a map, it may be difficult to go from one route to the other, as your only directions would be signposts along the way...
Buen preps

 

[pudgypilgrim]

Thanks for such a helpful post, Marion. Yes, I love the blue IGN maps, but I found it amusing that nobody seems to sell a map for the next département, even if the border is 5k away. In Cloyes I could get maps for lots of places (like Haute-Savoie, for example) but not for Cher-et-Loir, and the normally unbelievably helpful local folks just said, "Oh, it's a different département. You'll have to ask the parishes there," and changed the subject. Oh well, I did meet one pilgrim walking with nothing but the Michelin Centre map and he was managing okay.

I have Iphegenie, but on a small screen that wasn't as helpful as I could have wished, at least not without also doing GPS, which I don't like.

It seems that I could conceivably take the GR46 and stop in Cormery, Loches, Châtillon-sur-Indre, and Buzançais en route to Châteauroux, although it would be expensive.

Ray, I think that's a great idea, but if you're walking early in the year be sure to check a couple of days ahead for accommodations to be sure they're open.

 

[JabbaPapa]

I started from Paris via Chartres last year, but had to return home from Cloyes-sur-le-Loir with a broken foot. I hope to go back and pick up where I left off, but I've been thinking that I might like to switch over to the Vézelay sometime after Tours. It's not that I dislike the prospect of les landes, just that I'm more comfortable with averaging about 20-25 km a day because I'm slow, and there are a lot of very long stages the further south you go on the Voie de Tours because there just isn't any place else to stop.

I know I could walk the GR 46 (I think that's the number) from Tours to Chateauroux, but is there another way to connect the two that would be better? It seems like it's ~100km from one route to the other no matter which towns you try to join up.

I've done it, and the Vézelay route actually goes through the Landes -- if you really wanted to completely avoid those, yep, extremely long stages, you could slip down to the Vézelay route after Tours ; and then slip off that again to get yourself to Lourdes (though it would be a lengthy detour). Alternative routes down there are generally fairly easy to devise on the fly, but if so you would occasionally find your path forward barred by impassable waterways.

 

[pudgypilgrim]

Thanks, JabbaPapa. Lourdes, eh? Now that's a very interesting idea. I'll have to think about that. I would like to walk from Lourdes sometime but I hadn't considered the possibility of doing it when starting from the Paris route. Gotta go find my maps and put on my thinking cap!

 

[JabbaPapa]

Thanks, JabbaPapa. Lourdes, eh? Now that's a very interesting idea. I'll have to think about that. I would like to walk from Lourdes sometime but I hadn't considered the possibility of doing it when starting from the Paris route. Gotta go find my maps and put on my thinking cap!

You'd end up skipping between five-six different Caminos ...

 

[Sraaen]

I started from Bordeaux in September 2013 and took 10 days to reach St Jean on the way to Santiago. I used the inland route first stopping at Gradignan in the southern suburbs of Bordeaux, then Barp, Belien-Bebliet, Moustey, Labouheyre, Onesse-Laharie, Taller, Dax,Cagnotte, Arancon, St Palais and finally St Jean Pied-Port. There is always accommodation (generally municipal gite) in a daily 20 to 25 km range. The sign posting is excellent thanks to the local Les Amis du St Jacques Association. The Les Landes scenery is a little monotonous until you reach the foothills of the Pyrennes after Dax. I found the flat terrain a wonderful conditioning exercise for the later climbs. I only met 4 other pilgrims heading for Santiago in sharp contrast to the numbers staring from St Jean. This route was also part of the medieval route from Bordeaux. At that time Les Landes was a much feared section due to difficult swampy terrain and bandits but it was transformed into a forest in the 18th century. Most of the forest still remains but thankfully the bandits seemed to have disappeared.

Les Landes is painful. Straight as an arrow, flat as a board. I lived large in Barp at a nice hotel but the rest of the way til Dax was horrible.

The Meseta on CF has a reputation for flat and boring but compared to walking through Les Landes on VdT is a major ordeal. Please people, if anyone has anything nice to say about walking through Les Landes, I would be inspired to hear it.

But Dax is a nice little city, as is St. Palais.

The walk from St. Palais to SJPdP has a profound feel to it.

 

[Bradypus]

There is always the option of following the coastal Voie Littorale instead to Biarritz, then the river towpath and minor roads to St Jean. Also very flat and pretty straight as far as Biarritz. Lots of sand and trees, with a few lakes for variety. When you get too bored there is usually the option of diverting on to the beach for a few km of sun and a cooling breeze.
http://www.csj.org.uk/voie-littorale/

 

[Tuesday Wildchild]

All this talk of the Les Landes section being boring only makes me think that it's a pilgrimage and as such will not be all soft and cuddly but more of an endurance that makes you earn prizes( the 'beautiful' bits) here and there .

 

[JabbaPapa]

Please people, if anyone has anything nice to say about walking through Les Landes, I would be inspired to hear it.

It is a very strange experience, similar in some respects to finding yourself alone on certain parts of the Meseta.

But you lose the sense not only of time, but of space, because when you walk along an utterly straight road between utterly straight pines planted in utterly straight lines, for hours on end, you simply cannot avoid a sense of being outside of normal reality, and of simultaneously walking but remaining in one single location.

There is a spiritual quality to the experience, as well as a peculiar abstract beauty, though it's also a much more shocking experience psychologically than the Meseta.

---

Apart from that, the inhabitants are very warm and friendly people, kind and understanding, and the local cooking is fabulous. The air quality and the utter silence also seem to provide a general sense of good health and alertness, that are pleasant to experience.

 

[Sraaen]

It is a very strange experience, similar in some respects to finding yourself alone on certain parts of the Meseta.

But you lose the sense not only of time, but of space, because when you walk along an utterly straight road between utterly straight pines planted in utterly straight lines, for hours on end, you simply cannot avoid a sense of being outside of normal reality, and of simultaneously walking but remaining in one single location.

There is a spiritual quality to the experience, as well as a peculiar abstract beauty, though it's also a much more shocking experience psychologically than the Meseta.

---

Apart from that, the inhabitants are very warm and friendly people, kind and understanding, and the local cooking is fabulous. The air quality and the utter silence also seem to provide a general sense of good health and alertness, that are pleasant to experience.

Shocking is the perfect word. The unrelenting flatness did a job on my feet and legs.