Pilgrims on the Way

The old medieval center of the city of Cahors is a delightful, if confusing, maze of streets and alleyways. I absolutely love it. The streets are narrow enough that the whole scale of the place seems human rather than industrial. There are few motor vehicles that fit. And even during the worst of France’s heatwave, there’s always a place to […]

This statue sits in a little plaza just off to the side of the Camino Photo of the Day: Cathédrale Saint-Etienne de Cahors. It was erected in 2015 by a group called Les Gardiens de l’Ange, whose purpose is to acquire worksof art and donate them to the local authorities of the Lot River Valley. I admit that my first […]

As one would expect, the Camino passes next to the cathedral in Cahors. We’ll explore it in some detail in the coming days, but first, I would have to find the Tourist Office and secure a gîte for the night. I will say, it was a little odd approaching the cathedral from the back; I feel like the Camino somehow […]

As I crossed this very modern bridge over the River Lot into the medieval city of Cahors, the church bells were ringing out the hour of noon. I was dying for lunch, but my first stop would be the Tourist Office to see if they could find me a gîte for the night. That, of course, meant finding the Tourist […]

As I walked the river path, the forest became farmland, which soon transformed into suburbia. Within just a few minutes, the suburban became very urban indeed. Even though I was walking on the sidewalk by this point, traffic would slow down as they passed me. I presume they were trying to get a better look at my crazy umbrella. The […]

It probably would have been faster and easier to get to Cahors by simply walking the main road from Vers. Nevertheless, I finally found the way to the river and followed a lovely trail through occasionally dense tree cover. Parts of the trail were not particularly well-maintained (or marked), but it was beautiful throughout. One memorable moment included a downed […]

The Way from Vers to Cahors was excruciating. It’s not that it wasn’t beautiful, because it surely was. No, the issue was that Cahors is a major city, and it’s surrounded by a spaghetti of hiking trails wending their way through the surrounding hills. The Camino route wound its way through these. At one point, it had taken me something […]

After going up the valley, the path descended again. And then pretty soon it was uphill again. It was a slow, difficult slog uphill over stones mostly almost the size of my fist, irregular, slippery, and potentially ankle-twisting. The thing that gets me about this is that the stones were obviously placed here on purpose. The people who made the […]

The Way climbed high above the river. From the vantage point near the top, I could see farms and gardens spreading out from the banks, so it appears this rough route was designed to avoid the farmers’ property. I was already dripping with sweat, and the forest was warm and humid. It was only when I came to a bit of […]

After a lovely breakfast with Tony, the gîte owner, and Constance, the injured pilgrim from Brazil, I left about 7:40 into a cool, clear morning. The Camino began practically at the gîte’s front door and proceeded on a long bridge over the Lot River. I had left the Lot River Valley days ago in Figeac, and this far downstream the […]