vezelay route in perigord

[tessa.garton]

Hi, I have just joined this forum and am planning to walk a section of the Vezelay route this summer around mid-July. I have limited time available (only a week) but was thinking of walking through the Perigord, maybe starting around Thiviers and walking to La Reole. I will be walking alone and wondered whether I am likely to meet people on the route who I might be able to join up with. I have walked the Le Puy route as far as Moissac and always met great people to walk with on that route, but am not sure whether the Vezelay route is as well-traveled. I have got a copy of the Chassain guide, which looks very helpful & informative.
I'd welcome any advice, ideas, suggestions, etc from anyone who has traveled the route. Which sections did you like best in terms of landscape and interesting walking? Is it mostly off-road, or are there long stretches of tarmac road (which I dislike!)? How easy is it to get accomodation and do you need to book ahead? What were some of the highlights of your trip?
Thanks,
Tessa

 

[jl]

Hi Tessa, Have just checked my "itinerary" and I will be in Thiviers on about the 31st July - and like you, travelling on my own. Sadly - I don't think our paths will cross, but I am encouraged that you are going - I was fearful that there might not be any pilgrims on that path! Kevin (Omar on the forum) is over there at present and the last I heard from him was in Arbouse - in pouring rain! - on Tuesday and so I guess he will have passed through Thiviers by the time you get there.

Giorgio (from the forum) has lots of helpful information - check out his posts.

I too am using the Chassain guide.

Enjoy the anticipation and Bon Route, Janet

 

[giorgio]

Hallo Tessa, the Vezelay route has about 1/10th as many walkers than Le Puy. Top months are may/june then number drops a bit due mainly to heat. Would say the majority of the trail is on tarmac, with almost no traffic at all . Very up-and-down except from La reole were it becomes quite flat for quite a few km. With only one week of time available possibly where to start will largely depend upon the type of transport you can take. Booking ahead is recommended but not mandatory, it's a must for week ends on municipal gites and of course if you want to stay at somebody's home (APD Accueil Pelerin a Domicile,which we enjoied very much).
Let me add a few notes on the places we stayed
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Vezelay /Centre S.Madeleine, you can sleep in the dorm or take ,for a few euros more a room with two beds
Cuncy le varzy/Refuge,good,food supply,kitchen
Arbourse/refuge,excellent,food supply,kitchen
La charite sur Loire/refuge,very good ,limted kitchen
Bourges/Foyer st francois of the homeless,very good,dinner with the guests
Neuvy-Pailloux+2km /APD la tripterie/great mobilhome in a farm,food supply,kitchen,from here possible shortcut to avoid Chatouroux going to Le Poinconnet. At the end of Chatouroux forest follow the map NOT THE SIGNS ,that is to say turn RIGHT at the end to go to
Velles/Gite prive mme Acounte,very good,beds with sheets,half board 20 euros
Pechereau/refuge municipal ,fantastic,large kitchen
Crozant,hotel du lac nice but expensive (refuge was full,but sleep on floor) go to l'eclat du soleil
La souterraine /gite mr rowney,good,high class dinner,a bit expensive
Marsac/gite chez bernie,good
Les billanges /gite chez francoise,fair
Limoges/APD with Simone and Christian Lebrand ph.0555346168/fantastic evening with former pilgrims,english spoken ?
Perigueux/APD palfreyman sent us to substitute (tuesday she's not available),acceptable....
ST Astier/mobile home in local camping,very good,kitchen
Mussidan/refuge municipal,good,limited kitchen
Port st foy/refuge in old presbitere,very good,kitchen
St Ferme/Refuge with hospitaleros,good ,half board
St hilare de la noaille/fantastic gite with great couple ,great half board,don't miss
Bazas / great apd with fantastic couple mr and mrs Torres friends of the Chemin. Call mme Barran
Le Bollion/gite with old couple -no dinner,bring your food-,good
Rochefort/refuge ,very good,limited kitchen
Montmarsan/refuge,very good,kitchen
St Server /refuge,only 4 places,good,no kitchen
Hagetmau/CH mme Bats, very good,no dinner
Orthez/refuge in old tower,very good,kitchen
Sauveterre de bearn/ch mme trouilh,very good half board
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Let me know if i can be of further help
Ciao from Italy
Giorgio

 

[Bridget and Peter]

Hi Tessa

We are also of the Vezelay route minority. We are cycling from home in England to Santiago via the Vezelay route in stages, and last year we cycled Reims to Vezelay to Flavignac. So we have not covered the bit you are thinking of yet.

Have you already visited Vezelay? The basilica is quite something! And the town is quaint. Walking from Vezelay for a week on the Northern route would take you though La Charite-sur-Loire - and that's another interesting town and cathedral. Part of the cathedral nave was lost when King Phillippe Emanuel or someone planned to put a road straight though it, so the west end is divided from the east end of the nave and the chancel by a ramshackle collection of buildings, including the tourist office. The cathedral has lots of character, with quirky carvings (I thought I saw a Sheela-na-gig but maybe I was imagining things). Maybe you would get as far as Bourges - St Etienne is a renowned cathedral, but we didn't feel as warm towards it as we did to La Charite - somehow it just seemed OTT with FIVE portals and tympani - and that was just the west end - there's another one on the south side! At least I learnt the french for flying buttress.

Or what about something like Argenton or Crozant or Gargilesse to St Leonard or Limoges? Plenty of fast trains back to Paris from Limoges! This is a hilly bit but very pleasant and interesting in terms of architecture and medieval churches. We stuck our head in one little village church to find the most amazing wall paintings! And the treat of it all, if you like eccentric people with passionate interests, is Benevent L'Abbaye. This has an Abbey church which may well be built according to the Golden Ratio. Dr Conquet, who holds the key to the commodious if a bit spartan gite de pelerins, has made a stsudy of this since moving to the little town as it's doctor in the fifties. He has studied the links between the stone masons of the Creuse and the old celtic or druid hermits he believes brought Christianity to the area long before more orthodox missionaries directed by Rome. He has put up a display of diagrams and drawings which explain all this in the church, which he has titled 'Celto-chretienne '. However, the 'Celto' (last September anyway) had been scored through very firmly with blue biro, I presumed by the good sisters who run the church. Methinks there is some disagreement, then!

The Chassains, by the way, warn against Dr Conquet (without naming him) on blue page 85 of their guide! He does indeed incite pilgrims to divert from the Chassain dictated route, particularly to miss Limoges if they so wish. I do think he has a point - surely the ancient pilgrims found all sorts of ways and if for some years they went one way probably when one hospice closed down or another opened and offered a better meal they took a slightly different route for a while. We did visit Solignac, another enormous church with wonderful carved wooden choir stalls and misericords. We initially missed Limoges, going from St Leonard de Noblat to Flavignac via Solignac, (but we were on bikes so could go further)but then decided our legs were getting tired and we decided to go back to Limoges to return home, rather than push ourselves on to Perigueux.

As for places to stay, I agree with Giorgio about Arbourse and La Tripterie, the caravan in a barn, (and we also took the advice given there to go through the forest and avoid Chateauroux ). We stayed in the foyer in Bourges too, but although it was interesting eating with the guests - we heard one chap's sorry story of family breakdown - at least, I think we did, my French is patchy)we felt it was rather expensive (40 euros) for the two of us in a shared room and the supper and breakfast were actually barely enough for us as active as we were. There was a TV though! - the first and last for a long time, and the other pilgrim enjoyed the football!

Other gites de pelerins we stayed in were Baugy, Flavignac, St Leonard de Noblat. Most were small - a couple of bunks - and pristine, and either donations or suggested amounts like 6 or 8 euros. St Leonard is bigger with several rooms and a bath tub instead of a shower. (We shared this with someone I can only describe as a 'man of the road' - I think he had acquired keys to many of the refuges, but he was harmless, if rather sleepily drunk, and we didn't have to sleep in the same room as him!

Anyway, I have rambled on enough and I would better have spent the time writing up the rest of my journal on to our blog!! If you want to know anything else please PM and ask. (We have most of the 1:100000 IGN maps of the route. Also two pamphlets by Dr Conquet. How could we refuse?). If you do the Perigord bit please write about it - we'll be going that way Sept this year! Limoges to Santander is the plan- can't wait!

 

[tessa.garton]

Thanks so much for all your helpful replies and comments - this is a great forum! The details on the gites are really useful. I'm not sure how best to reply to all the points you raised, but will try to answer a few, at least. I'm a medieval art historian, specialising in Romanesque art, and have already visited many of the sites along the route by car (Vezelay a number of times and it is wonderful - also La Charite-sur-Loire), but I have recently become interested in experiencing the monuments more as a medieval pilgrim would have done, on foot. I'm also interested in seeing more of the Romanesque in western France, since it relates to my current research (on Romanesque sculpture in northern Spain). I'll be staying with friends who live near Perigueux before I start the trip, and they can drop me at a starting point, and I'll be taking a train back to somewhere in Normandy in order to get a ride back to the UK when I finish, so it seems to make sense to walk within the Limoges - Perigueux - La Reole stretch. I'm a bit concerned about too much tarmac - I loved the walks over the Aubrac plateau & the Causse on the Le Puy route, where it was mostly dirt tracks across beautiful countryside, and I found tarmac much harder to walk on. So if anyone can suggest a stretch that has country tracks rather than hard roads to walk on, I'd be much happier with that.
Thanks again for all your responses, and I'll be sure to report back when I have something more to offer. And please keep responding if you have any more ideas.

 

[giorgio]

Hallo Tessa,
you'll have a long stretch of flat, straight forest road after Bazas where the trail follows the old rail road, check on the Chassain's maps . On a couple of places there were still trees lying across the path but you can go thru.
Giorgio