GR 65 – Lo Vedo Life

This photograph summarizes our walk on the Chemin: wet weather, muddy terrain, and a whole lotta green.

From Le-Puy-en-Velay to Conques
In May we returned to the Lozère-Aveyron area to walk the second half of the section of the Chemin de Saint-Jacques that we had begun in June of 2022. You can read about the beginning of the adventure here and here.

A refresher: my friend Claude had long wanted to walk from Le-Puy-en-Velay to Conques. Many French people consider this to be the prettiest section of the Chemin in all of France, which is saying a lot. Take a look at the black and grey map below to see how France is covered with variations of Chemin routes, nearly all of them converging in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.

And they’re off!
As I wrote in the previous post, we began our walk in Le-Puy-en-Velay, a lovely historic city about two hours southwest of Lyon. It’s one of the ancient starting points in France for the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela (Saint-Jacques de Compostelle in French) in northwestern Spain, 1,522 kilometers away (946 miles).

This route is often called the Via Podiensis, although its more utilitarian name is the GR 65, where “GR” stands for Grande Randonnée (great trek). All of the GR routes are marked with a white-and-red blaze, which you’ll see in the photos below. This section of the GR 65, between Le Puy and Conques, is considered by many French people to be the prettiest in all of France. Our plan was to walk half of it now, and half later. When we started out, I tried to say “Conques or bust!” to Claude. As often happens, it fell flat, but we finally figured out that “Conques ou rien!” would be the translation (Conques or nothing).