Honey I'm un homme

Two weeks ago, I checked in to checkout: planning to catch my first plane in 5 years and make my first trip to continental Europe since I don't know when. A two-handed Thelma&Louise with The Boy was more-or-less mission accomplished and we are now back on our respective, and respected, sofas. Turns out that my français d'ecole affreux is good enough to ask/give directions on le chemin or engage in dinner-table chat. Not enough to make 
1. a convincing political solution to the disaster that is Brexit 
2. discuss the differences between a buzzard and a blackbird 
3. hold a torch for Michel de Montaigne [whom prev], though.

Normal people walk the Via Podensis along the way-marked GR65, starting at Geneva [for hard-chaws and Swiss peeps] or Le Puy and walk West towards The City of God Santiago de Compostella. Very few of those on The Way are through-hikers: it is a privilege of the retired, the independently wealthy and the completely indigent to be able to take 100 days out of their lives to trek the 2,000km in one go. Most folks we met, were doing the pilgrimage / walk is sections: a week or a fortnight at a time over several years of Summer holidays. Wherever and whenever you start, there will be others walking in the same direction at more or less the same pace and they'll keep turning up in your life as you pause to pop blisters or drink beer. You'll talk more to these people, more intensely, than anybody outside your immediate family.

Bat-shit folks walk au contraire, against the tide of humanity, and meet a lot more people but for no more than one night and two meals. That's what me and The Boy opted to dothis year and the way I approached the Camino Frances in 2004: slouching from Santiago to St Jean Pied de Porte in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques départemente of Aquitaine. St Jean PdeP is where started on Saturday 8th June; having bought sandwiches, water, some postage stamps and an Opinel #6 clasp-knife. It will surprise no Irish person that, coming out of the boulangerie, we were hailed by another walker, who lives in the Wexford village about 3km from home. She was yomping the GR10 another waymarked route which stretches from the Med to the Atlantic on the French side of the Pyrenees. All the GRs are designed and marked with 🇵🇱s to go both ways but there is much more additional signage for Direction Compostelle.

We were only led astray through inattention [and super-discrete to absent signage]on three occasions out of hundreds of cross-roads or forks in the path. Last time The Boy and I walked in 2004, Google Maps was not yet born. 21 years later, if you have a phone with data, navigation is a cinch. 

We slept [more or less this route in reverse]

• Ostabat Sat
• Saint Palais WhitSun
• Navarrenx Mon
• Arthez-de-Béarn Tue
• Fichous-Riumayou Wed
• Miramot-Sensacq Thu
• Aire sur l'Adour Fri
• train to Bordeaux for Sat

That's the bare bones, I am still distilling the experience and will have more to say in the coming blobdays. Depending on sources, MiamMiam DoDo, GoogleMaps, many different commercial, municipal and non=profit URLs we done walk ~170km. Power User Hint: don't buy the Miam-Miam Dodo guide to the Vezelay Chemin de Compostelle  = GR654 if you're determined to walk the GR65 Via Podensis! The GR65, GR655 and GR654 all converge on the (one church, one boulangerie) village of Ostabat one stage North of St Jean PdeP causing accommodation to creak at the seams.