Pilgrims on the Way

This parking lot / village square is the heart of the tiny village of Espeyrac. Off to my left is the local shop / café, and just beyond that is the gîte municipal. The little church in front of me is Saint-Pierre, and it’s by far the largest building in the village. Despite it’s small size, there are dozens of […]

I approached the village of Espeyrac at about 2:30 or so in the afternoon. You can see the steeple of the old priory church of Saint-Pierre d’Espeyrac, dating to no later than the 14th century. This village was my designated stopping point for the night. Unfortunately, the municipal gîte was all booked up, so I had to get creative in […]

After passing through a few small villages, the Camino becomes slightly more suburban. These fine fellows are in front of a house along the way. Somewhere near here, I took a little break to purchase a Coca Cola from an old Belgian lady with a roadside stand. I think it was more for the conversation than the break. Date: 26 […]

A kilometer or so after that one tree, I started running into slightly more tree cover. In the midst of these, two donkeys relaxed in the shade. They’re looking all innocent for the photo, but they constantly brayed as I walked up to them, and they made a similar racket as I left. Date: 26 August 2023 Place: between Golinhac […]

After leaving Golinhac, I scrambled up a short rocky slope before the Camino returned to traversing various rural roads through pasture and farmland. Whenever you have pasture, there always seems to be one lone tree in the middle of it. Perhaps it’s there for shade on a hot day. Today, however, there were no cattle lounging under it. Unlike the […]

Before leaving the village of Golinhac, I wanted to take a photo of the exterior of the church. This involved a little backtracking to find a decent view. Just after I took this photo, the church bells began chiming noon. They sounded mournful in the overcast and gloomy weather. In addition to the church, you can see the little café […]

When visiting any church on Camino, it’s always worthwhile to look up. This little cupola in the church of Saint Martin de Golinhac is, weirdly, above the main entrance. Normally, you see these sorts of things above the crossing or even above the apse of older churches. Perhaps somewhere in the past centuries, the church was turned around. I love […]

This is the altar in the little village church of Saint Martin de Golinhac. It’s clearly old. Does it date back to days when this was a priory church in the High Middle Ages? Or is it older still, perhaps dating to the foundation of the church in the 10th century? The pedestal was obviously replaced at some point, as […]

After grabbing a quick lunch at the local bar – a hearty and delicious ham and cheese sandwich with the local beer – I stopped by the village church. Although it’s clearly been restored and renovated many times over the centuries, at its core is a simple 10th-century Romanesque beauty. It became a priory church no later than the 12th […]

Although not as common in France as in Spain (I blame the Revolution), these roadside crosses were ubiquitous in the Medieval and early Modern eras. They were used as everything from boundary markers to meeting places to places of judicial summons to roadside shrines. This particular example is a 21st century copy of the 15th century original, which is now […]