Day 13: 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 12: 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 11: 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 10: 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 8: 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 7: 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 5: 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 4: 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 3: 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 2: 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 1: 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 12: 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 11: 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 10: Lers 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 9: 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 8: 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 7: 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 6: 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…
Day 5: Aix-en-Provence to Puyloubier After a day off seeing the sights in Aix-en-Provence, day five took me to the Bimont Dam and the Sainte-Victoire Mountains, including a climb up to almost 600m. Both weather-wise, walk-wise and scenery-wise, todays 28km was a great walk. I left the hotel fairly late and walked through the center of Aix-en-Provence passing the Rotonde…
