Community at the alberge
Gite Beilari is a very warm place.People gather in the kitchen to help prepare meals, set the table, or just to have a cup of tea or glass of wine.
How it ended.
How it ended.
Popular posts from this blog
2019 How it began
My journey to the Camino began many years ago. In the fall of 2011, we had just moved from Philadelphia to Chapel Hill. We got settled in and then headed off for a barging trip on the Canal de Midi in the south of France. Our barging route took us past Moissac on the Canal de Garonne. We stopped at the old church and learned that it was a pilgrim church for the Camino de Santiago. (I now know it is a stop on the French Way- the Le Puy Camino.) We even received a credential (pilgrim passport) and had it stamped with a sello or a stamp saying we had travelled as a pilgrim to this spot. Along the canal route,we'd sometimes see pilgrims walking with their big backpacks. Thus a seed was planted. Fast forward to 2019. Two friends asked me to join them in an Ollie class about the Camino de Santiago, offered by John Saxon, an inveterate pilgrim. I went and we all were hooked. We began planning a trip for 2020 and ...
2023 Rescheduling our Camino...to the Cotswolds
As the world began to open up in 2021 and 2022, our group of 7 kept discussing whether not to try going on the Camino.Alas, some folks had illness and injuries that make doing the Camino more daunting than before. We all agreed that being together was more important than the route and so ended up planning a 10-day walk in the Cotswolds for the fall of 2023. We had a marvelous time on that walk which I'll write about separately. Alas, even after this Cotswold walk, my friends were unable to join me in walking the Camino in 2024. But the Camino kept calling to me. I loved our Cotswold trip. I loved getting up every morning, putting on my boots and a day pack and heading out to the next town, walking with friends in the beautiful countryside. I kept thinking, could I do this alone? I decided yes. For our Cotswolds trip, we had booked via Contours, a company that will arrange your lodging, luggage transport and provide maps. We qui...