Day 1 August 27 – Le Puy

34⁰ C

The plan was to get up at 6am to go to the Pilgrim’s Mass at the Cathedral at 7am. This was primarily Lynn’s idea, who didn’t sleep all that well that night. The room had an air conditioner and the temperature was fine, but the lack of air was a problem and so it was stuffy and the room smelled of cleaning products. So when the alarm went off at 6am, Lynn had a bit of a headache and really didn’t feel like getting up. Russell was happy to sleep in a bit more. We got up around 8:45am and couldn’t remember if breakfast was over at 9am or 9:30am. Thankfully, it was over at 9:30am. It was a very nice hotel and they had a wonderful breakfast of cereals, yogurt, fruit, various breads, cheese, meats, jams, etc., plus  a fancy coffee machine you operated yourself.

We set out sightseeing at around 10am. It was already very hot and humid. The town is very vertical, so lots of ‘puys’ to climb up and down. There was a Saturday market set up all through the old town with much hustle and bustle.

I knew I wanted to go to the Tourism Office for a specific reason. We went but I couldn’t remember why, and we left heading for the Cathedral.  On rue des Tables there was an artist making pottery outside her shop, and we in to look around. Russell and I fell in love with a sculpture of St. Jacques the Pellegrino that her husband had done. It was very heavy and we didn’t want to lug it around in our suitcase that is supposed to weigh no more than 13 kilo all along the Camino, so we asked if it could be shipped. She said he husband would be there later in the day and to come back and talk to him about it. She was sure it could be arranged.

There was a mass going on in the Cathedral, so we continued to other sights. First we visited the ‘Camino Pilgrim Office’. They had pilgrim passports, t-shirts, information on the route etc. We had received pilgrim passports from the Canadian Company of Pilgrims of the Way of Saint James back in 2013, which we didn’t use then, but are using for this portion of the journey.
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Next we visited the cloisters of the Cathedral, built between the 11^th and 12^th century and one of Europe’s finest Romanesque architectural edifice. 

After that we went to ‘Le Camino’ which houses a display of the Way to Santiago. The fellow suggested that since the exhibit was all in French, and we had walked there already, we should save our money. It was very worthwhile to have gone there anyway because we found out the pilgrim get together was there that evening, and started at 5:30pm, not 6:30pm.

By then, the mass was over in the Cathedral, so we went in and visited. The most impressive aspect of it was, standing in the church by the grand entrance with the doors open, you had a magnificent view of all the steps down to rue des Tables and further down Avenue de la Cathedral. I said to Russell we should get a picture of us starting the Camino after the pilgrim mass tomorrow from there.

We exited via all those steps to the Cathedral, stopped to if the sculptor was there yet, he wasn’t, and then followed the Camino back through town as far as necessary to know where to go tomorrow. Then went and got some supplies and went back to the hotel for lunch.

After lunch, I remembered that what I wanted to get at the tourism office was a walking guide of le puy, so we went back and got that and started to follow it.

It took us back up rue des Tables, this time the sculptor shop was closed for siesta, or  whatever the France equivalent is called.

On our way to climb the 267 stairs to the Rock and Chapel of St. –Michael-d’Aiguilhe, we admired the statue on the Corneille Rock platform of Notre Dame de France. It was erected in the year 1860 with the metal of 213 canons captured from the Russians during the Crimean war. It is 227 metres high and weighs 835 tons. St Michael’s chapel was built in 961 thanks to Gothescalk, bishop of Le Puy, when he resolved to build it when he returned from a pilgrimage to Santiago. It was a technical and human feat built high on a puy. The stained glass windows were incredibly austere and the projections from the light shining through was amazingly beautiful. The stained glass was like the stained glass we saw at a church on the Galilee in Israel built on the site where Jesus said Peter was the Rock on which he would built his church.

At the Chapel of St. Michael we saw the german bike riding pilgrim from the train. We told him of the  new address and time of the pilgrim meet-and-greet but he said he likely wouldn’t make it. We all bid each other a bonne Chemin and parted.

On the way back, we went past the sculptor shop again and he was there this time.  We bought the statue, paid him 30 euro to mail it, and gave him our address. When we left I realized we had no bill of sale or anything to show for the purchase. I’m pretty sure he will mail us the sculpture none the less. If not, we could be out quite a bit of money!

We went down the hill again, wandered about, then climbed the hill again to the pilgrim meet and greet.  It was a good thing we got there at 5:30, because by 6:30pm just about everyone was leaving.

It was nice to have gone. We met quite a few pilgrims setting out tomorrow, including a lady called Christine from New Zealand who had done the Camino from St. Jean Pied de Port to Santiago, a man from Switzerland who had started from his home town and was going to Santiago, he had already walked 600km to get to Le Puy. We met Michael and Inga from Germany who are walking to Conques, a petite young French girl with a very heavy pack and Jossee from Quebec , both of whom for which this was their first long distance walk, and many others.

After the meet and greet, it was back for our first half board dinner at hotel Bristol.  It was a lovely dinner of soup, veal chop and rice, and a very lovely dessert made from local berries.

It was very hot today, and although the room was cool enough, it was once again stuffy and smelly and very dry from the area air conditioner. Between that and the excitement, it was not a good night’s sleep.