And then it came to pass that I walked almost directly beneath the wondrous vision that was Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe … :O … What faith its builders must have cradled to complete such a masterpiece — with their heartfelt devotion so obviously emanating from its glory-ladled summit! :O 😀 “Above all the other gifts of Jesus […]
Second only to the mountain-spired chapel of Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe was Le Puy’s primary Catholic church, the Cathédrale Notre-Dame du Puy itself — one of France’s three primary departure hubs for the Camino de Santiago; a building the first sight of which forcing me to fully stop in my tracks and stare silent and dumbfounded, with […]
And so it was that — after 50+ days of journeying and some 750+ kilometers (460+ miles) of walking — I finally walked slowly and quite reverently up the long & wide staircase that led into the Cathédrale Notre-Dame du Puy, a destination that was as majestic within as it was without — the endpoint […]
I had purposefully carried the pictured stone over 400 miles in my shoulder bag (all the way from SW Germany) in order to one day place it reverently in the Le Puy cathedral, and it felt immensely satisfying on this particular day to finally be able to do so — to finally be able to […]
For those who will never make it to Le Puy, much less walk the Camino through southern France, this is how it looks for every pilgrim setting forth from that phenomenal place. After each morning’s pilgrims mass is concluded and the pilgrims present have been blessed, a metal grate in the very middle of the […]
I made it thereafter to the local tourist information center, told them of my quest, and was given the address of Le Puy’s donativo pilgrims hostel — along with a set of “It’s quite easy to find” directions thereto. Of course, as one can well imagine, navigating Le Puy’s medievally winding and often completely unlabeled […]
The hostel in Le Puy wasn’t open until later that afternoon, so I returned to the tourist information office to see if they had any information on hand related to what might lay in store for me along the upcoming legs of the Camino. I hadn’t really collected any facts or tidbits about The Way […]
After Hartmut had departed to set up camp for the night (in the tent he was carrying with him on his bicycle) and after I had finished mining a smattering of Camino information from the pamphlets in the local tourist bureau, I headed back to the still-closed hostel to write in its courtyard for awhile. […]
As a general rule, I spent as little time as possible in larger cities during my Walk — primarily due to the fact that the far greater sense of hustle-&-bustle therein (along with the far greater prevalence of those well-known, hyper-selfish siblings: material wealth & greed) tempted most of their residents to glance quickly and […]
“It is crucial to realize that there are no wrong turnings in life; only paths taken we had not yet known we were to walk — only consequences we had not yet known we were to accrue — and only lessons we had not yet known we were to thereby learn.” ~ inspired by Guy […]
While the natural tempo with which I walked steadily rose the closer I got to Santiago (and thus the longer I was allowing my hips and legs to heal from the trauma they had endured during the Walk’s initial stages), there remained quite regularly pilgrims who would blow past me as though I were standing […]
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