Paris-Montrouge Scribbler

  Pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela, 2003 .  Week 2  (2-8 May) Friday, 2 May 2003 .  Espalion .  [Day 8] 7:50 p.m. Espalion in Aveyron, the home town of our Parisian neighbor, Michèle Delsol. We’re staying in a real hotel, the Hôtel de France, the local gîte being full. 10:00 p.m. This hotel room seems like a palace. I did yoga, took a shower, and washed two days of clothes. Caroline the same (minus yoga). At 8 p.m. we went out, found a bar with internet services and sent/read messages. Then on to the Brasserie “Le Palais” for dinner. I had brandade de morue (a puree of salt cod, potatoes, and garlic) and green salad, for €6.10. At another table a group of young Turkish men were playing cards. Workmen, I suppose. I was curious to ask them what they were doing in Espalion, but I didn’t feel like intruding. A beautiful walk for much of today, especially in the later morning with sun and blue skies. A big descent, though, and some ups a...

  Here follows the daily journal I kept during the trip, edited for clarity, with illustrations added (my photos + pictures taken from the internet), with mile and pound equivalents added to metric measurements, and with the benefit of hindsight. I should note that we had neither cell phones nor digital cameras -- technological developments just coming in, but which hadn't yet reached us.   Friday, 25 April 2003. Night spent in Le Puy-en-Velay .  [Day 1] 8:15 a.m . Caroline and I are en route from Paris to Le Puy-en-Velay via St. Etienne, in a train (TGV) that left Paris at 7:00 a.m. (from the internet: ontheworldmap.com)  Not many people are in this train. The weather is cloudy, with a bit of clearing as we head south, but not cold. Wednesday we both arrived in Paris, where we stayed with Claude and Suzanne, my wife Marie-Henriette’s maternal uncle and aunt (Caroline’s great-uncle and great-aunt). Almost 79 years old, they both seem fine, Claude now...