Via Lemovicensis: the Long Green Tunnel

Today’s start was very slow. Fortunately, it’s meant to be another relatively short day in preparation for tomorrow’s long haul.

The first stop was the Mairie (town hall) to pay for last night and get stamps in our pilgrim credentials. They didn’t open until 8:30, which in part explains our slow morning.

And then we had to hunt up some breakfast, which involved finding the one boulangerie in town open on a Monday and a nearby café for coffee. 

Thus fortified, Louis-Marie, Luc, and I finally set off well after 9 AM. No fleece today. The morning was already warm with hardly a cloud in the sky.

We soon picked up the Camino blazes and walked through quiet residential neighborhoods out of the city.

And then we joined a bike path laid along an old railroad route. This was packed earth and gravel, alternating with sections of graveled asphalt. It was super cruisey to walk on, which was handy, since I would be walking on it pretty much the rest of the day.

Most of it was under tree cover – effectively a long, green tunnel – and most of it was dead straight. On these long straightaways, even small differences in walking speed rapidly become multiplied, and after a very short time my friends were far behind me.

About 9:45, the path crossed a four-lane highway.

One year ago, Francine had been reduced to baby talk. She could occasionally still form proper sentences, but it was getting rarer and rarer. 

This was Francine the writer, Francine the wit, a woman who was a positive magician with words, reduced to the vocabulary and sentence structure of a toddler.

There were times when it was incredibly frustrating for her, obviously. And then there were times when she was pleased to have communicated anything at all.

It just about killed me to see the smartest, most brilliant person I’ve ever met be reduced to this.

Sometime around 10 AM, the green tunnel briefly became a managed forest. There were still plenty of deciduous trees along the path, but stretching out beyond them I could see a forest of pine trees.

I crossed another highway. This was somewhere near (or in) the village of Encal. The crossing was through a complex intersection with buildings.

I sang as I walked. 

Songs stuck with Francine, even if ordinary language didn’t. We would pray monastic Lauds and often Vespers together every day. I spoke through it and she followed along. There are some parts we usually sang together in Latin (or Greek!), and almost to the very end she could sing at least parts of the Pater Noster. 

For a long time, she also remembered some of her favorite Gregorian chants and hymns, as well as pop and punk songs from her younger days, and even some of the Pink Martini songs she loved to play and sing along with at Pistachio House.

She remembered “Ultreïa”. 

I don’t know how any of that works, of course. Clearly this music that formed her was a part of her that lived somewhere other than the deteriorating memory and language centers of her brain.

I passed a group of perhaps twenty walkers with sticks but no packs, walking the opposite direction. A hiking club? They were absolutely effusive as we greeted each other. Several of them said, “hello” instead of “bonjour”. How did they know?

At about 10:20, I crossed a road to the nearby village of Cudos. Here, the green tunnel disappeared for perhaps a kilometer or so, and I could see farms and fields and farmhouses. 

A quick glance at my map confirmed that I was making pretty good time on this path. I had intended to take it easy today, but it’s hard not to be speedy on this kind of path.

And then it was back to the green tunnel. At some point after 10:30, I started noticing pine trees stretching away from the tunnel again.

I was also noticing more frequent placement of benches and even a picnic table along the path.

At about 10:40, I passed a charming home with some outbuildings that I suspect was once something to do with the railroad that ran through here. Horses grazed in a nearby field.

This is also where the path crossed a bridge over the massive A 65 highway. I could certainly hear the cars and trucks zooming by below, but there was a visual barrier preventing me from seeing them. There was a section of the path on either side of the bridge that was pure asphalt, and my pace noticeably slowed on this surface.

And then it was back into the green tunnel. 

At about 11 AM, the Camino passed through the outskirts of the village of Bernos-Beaulac. It was a little odd to see back gardens facing onto the path, though I’m sure the homeowners prefer this to the trains that used to run here.

Once again, there was a highway crossing here. I seriously considered nipping into the village center for a cold Orangina, but I ultimately decided not to take the time. The forest walk was pleasant, and it afforded me plenty of time to pray and to think.

After this, another pine forest, sometimes now reaching to the very edge of the path.

Occasionally, when a cloud blocked the sun, a strange darkness would settle over the pine forest. It was almost like a mist. The first time it happened, I took off my glasses thinking they had started fogging up.

At about 11:50, I took a little break on a park bench and had a snack. I didn’t even take my backpack off.

While I sat there, a woman on a white horse was slowly riding towards me. A dalmatian, whose spots gave him an angry-looking face, ran ahead of her. I took out my camera to take a photo of the dalmatian, but he disappeared into the forest behind me. When I looked up the path to check on the progress of horse and rider, they had vanished.

They probably went down a side trail I couldn’t see from my vantage point, but it was kind of creepy when it happened.

I sat there about ten minutes, which was long enough that I could now see Luc and Louis-Marie in the distance behind me.

Sometime after noon, the forest thinned to the tunnel again, and I could see farms off to my left. It didn’t last long.

But it did repeat. After a while, it became a regular occurrence for the forest to my left to thin out to reveal a farm or a meadow. These were much less frequent on the right side, but they occasionally occurred there as well.

At just past 12:30, the path crossed another highway.

Just about fifteen minutes later, the bike path briefly ended. The Camino joined a broad but disused asphalt road for a couple of hundred meters before the bike path again resumed.

But the signage was a little confusing, and on the GPS at least, the Camino didn’t follow the bike path. It seemed to go off in its own direction, and I had to backtrack a bit to figure out where.

I eventually just went back to the bike path, as it seemed to be the only clear way forward.

The path took past the backyards of a beautiful residential neighbourhood and into my destination for the evening, the village of Captieux. 

Of course, there was a little bit of roadwalking at the end to get into the center of the village.

At 1:05 PM, I was in ensconced on a terrace with a tasty beverage and a view of the church.

And then the church. The 19th-century church of Saint Martin is a rebuilding and reconstruction of the original 12th-century church. Everything about it screams late 19th century Neo-Gothic, but for all that it is quite a peaceful and lovely place.

The main altar, which was installed in 1972 if I read the sign correctly, looks like a millstone. That’s probably not the image they were going for.

I prayed for a while here. I wanted to light a candle for Francine, but they were fresh out. 

And finally to the municipal gîte. I had just unlocked the door when Luc and Louis-Marie arrived with another French pilgrim, Pierre. 

We hung out for a while, and then it was the usual pilgrim chores of showers and laundry. And rest. It wasn’t a long day, but my body was definitely feeling the cumulative effects of walking for a month. 

And the next two days are long days, particularly tomorrow.

In the evening, I went back to the church to pray Vespers. Since I was the only one there, I sang.

Date: 11 May 2026

Place: Captieux 

Today started: Bazas 

Today’s Photos!