We all took the bus today from Vendargues to the centre of Montpelier. Neither the long concrete walk in nor the bus ride were ideal options for me, but the latter was definitely the better of the two. We are now happily ensconced, showered in a bright, clean, spacious and modern gite run by a lovely couple - and we are their very first guests. They opened for business on 1 April. We have the gite to ourselves, we are all showered and changed, the washing machine is on, and Martine is playing the piano in the sitting room. As I'm reminded on every Camino, what a difference a day makes.
Last night we were in an old school building in a small, cramped dormitory for 8 - with 3 seats of narrow bunks and 2 single beds and little space in between. Our room mates were three men who had been at our gite the previous night (in another room upstairs) including 82 year old Didier, who had also walked yesterday's 33 kms. He leaves by around 6 am. Incroyable.
One of our other 'dorm mates' snored so loudly - and violently - that none of our band of four had more than two hours sleep. So we were tired before we even started today, all the more reason why our bus/tram into Montpelier was the right choice. We'll do the same tomorrow morning to move beyond the city's outskirts, then walk around 20+ kms to Saint Guilhem le Dessert, with time to enjoy a leisurely afternoon and evening there. Saint Guilhem is one of the jewels of the Arles Way. We're all looking forward to our time there.
How to get into Montpelier wasn't our only choice today. Shortly after we set out this morning, we had two options - to follow the original Chemin (pilgrims Camino path heading to Santiago de Compostela in Spain) or continue on the GR 635 (GR stands for Grand Randonee -- a large network of long distance paths in France). For today's walk, they used to be one and the same, but now the paths diverge in sections. This is what Marcel and Therese spoke to us about at the gite in Saint Gilles on our first night.
There are 4 main Camino routes across France, paths that have been walked for more than a thousand years. The GR network has been around for a considerably shorter time. As the GR trails were established and way marked with the red and white horizontal bars, it made sense that GR paths would include the 4 Camino paths - Le Puy, Vezelay, Tours and Arles. These days the Arles route for the most part is one and the same as the GR 65-3. And pilgrims in France rely on the more frequent red and white GR signs as well as the typical blue and yellow scallop shells and arrows of the Compostela . The 35,000 km GR network is managed by the French Hiking Federation while the pilgrim paths are cared for by groups of volunteers in local associations. For the most part it seems they work together or at least co-exist without incident. But not always.
For most of the path we walked today we were following new blue and yellow signs, freshly painted by Therese and Marcel, our hospitaleros from our first night. They had to do this to waymark The Way because the original GR and pilgrim signs had been removed or crossed out by the GR hiking federation. It seems enterprising business owners in some neighbouring villages 6 or 7 kms off The Way had 'lobbied' the hiking federation and persuaded them to change the GR so that instead of going through farmland and forests, the signs would be changed to pass through their villages. But, not content with bringing general hikers onto the 'updated' route, they wanted the pilgrims to be led the same way. So over a period of months, all the signage on this original section was removed. When the local pilgrim association got wind of it, they out the word out for volunteers. And thanks to Therese and Marcel, we were able to stay on The Way today, at least until we hopped on the bus!
Later - my final reflection tonight is that Montpelier might have been given a bad rap. While I'm thankful not to have walked through the ugly concrete sprawl to arrive here this afternoon, tonight we strolled through the centre of the old part of town and I liked it. And can recommend Chez Felix, just off the main square, for a delicious and good value dinner.
A bientot.
J X
