Day - St.Alban France - 78 kms On the Camino !

We had not started well by sleeping in, partly aided by Ross` departure and partly aided by H the night before when in placing his water bottle down he'd turned on the TV without knowing then decided to wake me up to tell me to turn it off !

On a cloudy yet fine day we launched straight into a climb leaving Le Puy gaining 550 meters over 12 kms and nearly wiping H out before we had even got going (his breathing) !

In doing so we had our first look at the GR 65 the Chemins St Jaques or the Camino in Spanish. The trail looked no bigger than a small path rutted with rocks and water and as we thought, was totally unsuitable for touring bikes justifying our decision to travel by road as close as possible to the trail.

This is one of the 4 main trails collectively called the Camino on which pilgrims have travelled for over 1200 years. While the paths may have moved over timed the churches and relics en route provide for a great historical feel and sense of time.

We stopped at the lovely town of St.Private d`Allier for a cold drink before descending back down to 600 meters at Monistrol

That of course meant climbing once more this time 500 metres over 12 grinding Kms including a large section of road works and laid bitumen that brought back memories of mud mtn in China to H as his front pannier clearance bar kept jamming with collected stones !

We made it into to Sauces at the 46 km mark where we took a late afternoon lunch and seriously considered calling an early day but with hotels booked and the tourist info place trying to put us into a double bed we elected to continued 31 kms to St.Alban acknowledging a likely late finish.

Again more climbing this time over 15 kms with some steep sections that just about finished H off ! The fine weather and the knowledge of a good descent though kept him plugging away !

The descent from the forest was a beauty and carried us almost all the way into St.Alban arriving close to 6.30p.m.

H booked us into the Center Hotel then spent 20 minutes trying to find our room - our room no. 12 being on the 3rd floor despite 17&18 being on the 2nd which well and truly threw him

Taking dinner H nearly created an international stir when we were directed to sit next to a group of 5 French Camino walkers not aware of the Camino tradition that places travelers together at meal time - H tried to sit away from the group until told by the waitress to sit next to them.

Our day had brought a no. of Camino experiences including one where in talking to a German walker in Sausces we discovered that he was walking the Camino one section at a time having over the years having covered 3,000 kms from his home town in Hannover Germany - he expects to reach Santiago in 2015 about the same time as us at the rate we are going !