France – Following your feet

Day 135: Aigues-Mortes to St.-Gilles

The pain in my ankle intensified, super irritating but mostly manageable when I walked slower than I normally would. It is good that it is my last day, as I wouldn’t want to continue walking. At least the weather was pleasant, sunny and 20 degrees. Today I continued along the Canal Sète à Rhône, leaving…

Day 134: Carnon to Aigues-Mortes

A short 19km stage, with no mistake missing turns today. However, it wasn’t plain sailing. I have a swollen left ankle/shin, and not sure whether it is an allergic reaction or shin splints. Whatever, it was painful each time my left foot hit the ground. I left through Carnon’s high rise flats, soon reaching the…

Day 133: Sète to Carnon

I really need to get my morning act together. For the second day running, I missed a turn that led to extra kilometers, and on a 30km+, sunny and warm day, they really count at the end of the day. Today I change canals. Continuing towards St. Gilles, I will be following the Sète to…

Day 132: Agde to Sète

A sign just outside the hotel said 24km to today’s destination, Sète, I ended up walking 35km. I slept until 8am, which was somewhat later than normal. At breakfast I had to give emergency help to my wife at home in Denmark, as her mobile payment app no longer worked. So it was 9.30 by…

Day 131: Beziers to Agde

There are always days that just pass by, days where you don’t really remember very much. The 27kms from Beziers to Agde was such a day. The most notable part of the day were the lock at Agde and Ouvrage du Libron. I do recall that much of the day (ca. 60%) was on tarmac,…

Day 130: Capestang to Beziers

I left the B&B just as the door bell rang. The man at the door had hit a parked car, and the car belonged to the owner of the hotel. I beat a hasty retreat, unfortunately into the rain. Before leaving town I visited the church that totally dominates the skyline – so much so,…

Day 129: Roubia to Capestang

A 34km day with a very high probability of rain, and according to the forecast, the possibility for torrential rain after 4pm. The forecast was correct. There was heavy rain as I reached halfway, which lasted an hour and torrential rain at 4.45pm. Whilst I walked through the rain around lunch time, luckily I was…

Day 128: Marseillette to Roubia

I have never seen as many jars of homemade marmalade/jam as I saw at breakfast this morning. This is a B&B where they prepare things themselves- dinner last night, homemade yogurt, bread, marmalade, cake and probably more, and over 200 jars of homemade marmalades and jams. But no cheese! The B&B was close to the…

Day 127: Carcassonne to Marseillette

It was clothes washing day, so after an early breakfast I found the closest laundromat and washed and tumble dried the four days worth of dirty clothes. The chore finished I walked up to the medieval city to have a final look around, with fewer tourists. Check out was at 11am, so I had a…

Day 126: Bran to Carcassonne

I decided to walk back through Bram after leaving the hotel. I had read that it has the largest and best preserved circular center of any village in Europe. I’d walked around the outside of the old village centre yesterday. Bram, like so many other towns in the area was originally a Roman settlement, serving…

Day 125: Port Lauragais to Bram

I left this morning, expecting it to be a third day similar to the two first days, walking along a canal with tall trees along both banks. It’s been beautiful, fun to see the boats, locks and trees in an arc over the canal. And very easy going – flat and as long as you…

Day 124: Donneville to Port Lauragais

A beautiful sunny day, but extremely windy and unfortunately it was a head wind, so todays 30km was heavy going. I left the hotel after breakfast, leaving Donneville along a main road, without a lot of room for walkers, but it wasn’t long before I reached the canal. The nature of the canal hadn’t changed,…

Day 123: Toulouse to Donneville

I was up at 4.30am, at the airport by 6am and in the air, on a half-full flight and slightly delayed flight to Toulouse. Copenhagen was bathed in beautiful sunshine, so fog in Toulouse, which caused the departure delay, wasn’t what I was expecting. I left from the new extension at the airport, which I…

Day 122: La Napoule to Roquefort-les-Pins

My last day of walking this time around. I passed 3 “Route Barré” (road block) signs today, and many previously, and for the first time I recall, the road was actually blocked for walkers! I started the day in La Napoule, and followed the Siagne river inland. A peaceful walk, past Cannes Old Golf Course…

Day 121: Frejus to La Napoule

A beautiful sunny day, for a fabulous walk through the Estérel Mountains, a rugged range of red mountains stretching inland from the Mediterranean between Saint-Raphaël and La Napoule. I left Frejus walking along its Roman wall, passing an historical tower – Lanterne d’Auguste – a lighthouse dating back to the 2nd century, before walking out…

Day 120: Les Arcs to Frejus

As so often on this trip, a walk in two parts. A fabulous morning walk in the mountain range between Le Muy and Roquebrune-sur-Argens and a mixed afternoon, mainly on roads towards Frejus. For the first time I saw wild boar and I arrived to see the carnival in Puget-sur-Argens. There were a number of…

Day 119: Le Thoronet to Les Arcs

After a couple of sunny days, I was back walking under grey clouds with occasional light rain. I also got my feet, shoes and socks soaked, but not by the rain. As I left town, I passed a memorial with a narrow gauged train, leaving a mine – a reminder that bauxite, used in aluminum,…

Day 118: Brignoles to Le Thoronet

Quite a lot of road walking today as I continue east towards Le Thoronet and it’s Abbey, a few kilometers outside town. I left Brignoles going north towards Le Val on the relatively busy D554. Just before Le Val I turned east. We had driven this way last night and I thought I would be…

Pictures from Cotigac and Entrecasteaux

We drove north from Brignoles to visit the two villages of Cotigac and Entrecasteaux. The village of Cotignac nestles at the foot of a 80-metre high cliff. At the top of the cliff stand two square towers, the “sentinelles”, which have been standing guard over the village and surrounding area since the Middle Ages. The…

Day 117: Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume to Brignoles

It was supposed to be a short day, but blindly following the red and white route directions took me 30km instead of the planned 22km. I left the hotel on the outskirts of Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume and walked into the town to visit the Cathedral, before following a quiet road towards Bras. The Cathedral is quite imposing,…

Day 116: Puyloubier to Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume

There were high expectations after yesterday’s great stage. Today’s stage, the first of a couple of shorter stages, 22km, continues east, ending in Saint-Maximin-la-Sainte-Baume and its Cathedral, which towers above the town and is clearly seen from the motorway. It was yet another day where the sun shined all morning and rain was scheduled for…