{"id":14510,"date":"2023-08-17T08:12:52","date_gmt":"2023-08-17T15:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/?p=14510"},"modified":"2023-08-17T08:17:46","modified_gmt":"2023-08-17T15:17:46","slug":"via-podiensis-loving-le-puy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/via-podiensis-loving-le-puy\/","title":{"rendered":"Via Podiensis: Loving Le Puy"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I<\/span> slept like a rock. After a breakfast of black coffee and fresh bread in the refectory, my first stop was the cathedral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There I gave thanks for having safely arrived in Le Puy, prayed lauds, and then the morning Mass. It was celebrated simply but beautifully, and since we sang the Latin Mass parts I could sing along.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The cathedral feels small and intimate, but it sure packs in a lot of people. The building itself is simply stunning. It appears to be Romanesque with odd influences from the Byzantine east, including a dome over the sanctuary. I probably took a hundred photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afterwards, I climbed the 268 crazy steep stairs up to the chapel of Saint-Michel d’Aiguilhe (St. Michael of the Needle). It was built on a volcanic pillar of rock in the middle of the 10th century by Bishop Godescalc upon his return from Santiago. He was the first non-Spanish cleric to make the pilgrimage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This place has to be seen to be believed, ancient and holy, and photos don’t begin to do it justice. I prayed a while up there, including of course the Saint Michael prayer, which is dear to my heart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then I spent a couple of hours exploring the center part of the town. I’m kind of in love with Le Puy: a marvelously preserved vibrant old medieval city full of antique shops, used bookstores, and restaurants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had a very spectacular 10-minute thunderstorm, and then it was time for lunch. For my first real meal in days, I popped into a local restaurant and had my first pilgrim meal, or “assiette de Compostelle”. It was delicious. If this is typical of pilgrim meals in France, I just might end up gaining<\/em>weight. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It was beastly hot in the afternoon, but fortunately there was plenty of shade in Le Puy’s narrow winding medieval streets. After a great deal of wandering, I ended up sitting for a while under the cathedral portico, just taking in the place and watching the people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This evening I am planning on attending a salon held by the French pilgrim association.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And tomorrow, the long walk begins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Date:<\/strong> 17 August 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Place:<\/strong> Le Puy-en-Velay (Prefecture of Haute-Loire, Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes, France)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s Photos<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I slept like a rock. After a breakfast of black coffee and fresh bread in the refectory, my first stop was the cathedral. There I gave thanks for having safely arrived in Le Puy, prayed lauds, and then the morning Mass. It was celebrated simply but beautifully, and since we sang the Latin Mass parts I could sing along. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pilgrim-reports","category-via-podiensis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14510"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14510\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14514,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14510\/revisions\/14514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/camino\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}