Published: 07.06.2026
After leaving Conques, I was very curious about 'L'Aubrac', this vast high plateau of volcanic origin in the 'Massif Central'. Before that, I had descended into the valley of the heavily meandering Lot River a few times, approaching picturesque places via old stone arch bridges - such as in Estaing, later Saint-Come-d'Olt with very pointed church towers, or after a long, hot hiking day in the beautiful evening light in Espalion, walking along the river and then climbing back up to almost 500 m to sleep under the canopy of leaves on a picnic table. The individual conical volcanic mountains are crowned here and there with a castle ruin or, as above Espalion, by a life-sized stone Madonna in flowing robes, who looks down blessing into the valley, onto the carpet of fields, meadows, arable land, forest, town, and river in the morning light - I stand early in the morning with her on the summit and feel as if I could fly and see the land from a bird's-eye view...
Despite descending into the Lot valley, I am overall always climbing higher and higher in the 'Parc naturel regional de l'Aubrac'. The town of Aubrac itself is at an altitude of 1300 m. There is a thunderstorm warning after the hot days - and as I arrive after a long hiking day with increasing silence, wild strawberries, wild pansies, and narrow mountain paths on the bare high plateau, the sun suddenly disappears behind dark clouds, as if someone turned off the light, and a cool wind picks up. 'Please, no thunderstorm here now, without any shelter and only a few kilometers away from Aubrac!', I think to myself and walk faster. Hawthorn bushes (again) in full bloom, gorse, fences and pastures, crosses, stone walls, golden arnica flowers, striking rocks, cloud towers, and changing light - and the cold wind. Around half past seven, I reach Aubrac (again 32 km - by now I have 'well warmed up' and walk around 30 km on most days...): a small town with the typical massive stone houses here, a large tower (pilgrim hostel), a sturdy church, hotels, restaurants - and the town sign still upside down (when in January 2024 rubber boots were hung on the town signs in our area as a sign of solidarity with the farmers' protests, the town signs in France were turned upside down - obviously, it hasn't been successfully reverted everywhere yet...). I sleep in a small shelter next to the church - the size and character of a bus stop, but dry and somewhat sheltered from the wind. In the pilgrim hostel, I took a shower for a donation - since there was no one there whom I could ask, I independently decided that this was possible and even brewed myself some tea in the kitchen on the top floor of the tower... The people with the backpacks in the sleeping rooms on the second and third floors along the spiral staircase were probably all having dinner in the restaurant.
The next three or four days, I stay at altitudes between 1000 and 1300 m. The 'mythical Aubrac high plateau in the Central Massif', as the zealous local advertising states, is mostly a nature park and truly enchanted, solitary, and beautifully! I feel a bit uneasy when I have to walk through pastures since all the cows have calves, and if there is a big bull standing right in the way, I am quite relieved when I get past and there is a gate and fence between the herd and me again - vast grazing highlands, meadows full of white daffodils and carpets of purple pansies, high meadow foam flowers, golden gorse, a pleasant wind at the height and not so hot anymore, coniferous trees, flower-shimmering still-unmowed meadows, and those with fragrant hay, grain fields full of cornflowers... Mostly small, seemingly deserted towns and hamlets or simply kilometers of woodland and meadow paths without settlements. Now and then a water tap or well somewhere (always well marked with 'eau portable') and of course oncoming pilgrims. The nights are fresh and almost too cold to sleep outside, so after rather a chilly night under big pines, I am glad that there is again a shelter near the chapel of Saint-Roch, at the pass 'Col de l'Hospitalet' at an altitude of 1300 m, which, although not exactly warm and cozy in its massive stone wall darkness, does keep out the wind. In the morning, then washing at the 'holy spring' - unfortunately, the chapel is closed. In the early Middle Ages, there was probably a 'hospital' here, hence the name. (Unfortunately, in France, almost all interesting information boards about history, geology, buildings, landscapes... are exclusively written in French, with no additional English as is customary in many other countries.) After this 'pass' at the Col de l'Hospitalet, I leave Occitania and have been in the Auvergne-Rhone-Alpes region since then.
To Le Puy-en-Velay, there are still two sultry-hot long hiking days left (thunderstorm warnings) - 8 of the 75 hiking kilometers are a beautiful 'detour,' as the red and white markings are not only for the GR65, a fact I only notice after a considerable time when I wonder why I haven't seen any pilgrims coming toward me for so long!
These two days to Le Puy are still through mountainous terrain. Now, however, there are many coniferous forests, blueberry bushes, grass and moss under the pines and spruces, a scent of resin, softwood, and gorse. Then finally even light green beech forest - how I missed that in this spring!! In between again wide views of the land and wooded ridges. In the region around Sauges, there was a wolf or wild dog (?) between 1764-1767, a beast, in any case, that killed around a hundred people (women, children, youths): the 'Beast of Gévaudan.' Each small town has set up a wolf, huge, standing over a woman, either carved in stone or baring its teeth from wood, as a painted grimace or a metal statue - in Sauges, there is even a 'Musée de la Bête du Gévaudan,' advertised with wild posters. Pilgrim accommodations in this area not only advertise with shells of all kinds but also with wolf faces, hotels, shops, town signs: the beast appears everywhere; how much this trauma from centuries back still resonates in advertising today!
The houses, farms, castles, churches... in this area are all built from large boulders, with numbers from the 19th century on the door frames, the shutters are red, blue or turquoise, and the roses are blooming. As I said: one place looks like an open-air museum... In between again meadows full of daisies, cornflowers, scabious; in all meadows, the hay is being pressed into bales or cubes or blown onto trailers, and it gets dusty when the heavy machines roar along the unpaved paths. During these days, the cuckoos call tirelessly again... Willow seeds float in the air and lie at the edges of paths like snowflakes. And then all the rocks! Round boulders, large gray stones that 'lie around on the meadows.' The path to Monistrol d'Allier (old railway and industrial town, descending from over 1000 to 500 m, everything between basalt walls) and Saint-Privat-d'Allier is like a 'volcanic educational trail' with caves and overhanging steep walls made of beautifully 'geometrically patterned' basalt; once a chapel built into the rock face. In Saint-Privat-d'Allier, I plug my phone to charge in the church into an outlet before I set up my sleeping place in a very small, open-fronted vault nearby - the purpose of this 'building' is not clear to me, perhaps it was part of a gate to a park?, anyway, I have a protective roof against potential rain; the (almost) full moon shines brightly, and it is warm enough that night. The bells of the church rumble so close, however, that I am glad they don't ring again from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.! At first, though, I am quite startled when I want to get my phone and find the church locked now. Below in the village, I knock at the first gite where the guests are having dinner, a young man fortunately speaks English, so I can make my problem clear. The owner makes a quick phone call and sends me back to the church: a nice woman in a summer dress has already unlocked again when I arrive; she laughs heartily ('you are welcome') when I get my phone and charging cable and apologize for the trouble I caused her...
I arrive in Le Puy-en-Velay on May 31 and spend the night again in a church pilgrim hostel. Although it's not a monastery building like in Conques, it is just as old stone structure with many winding stairs and several floors. The landscape-shaping basalt peaks are called 'Puy' in French; in Le Puy-en-Velay, pointed mountain peaks rise right in the middle of the town, crowned by a huge red stone Madonna with a waving child in her arms, or by a church that seems too large for its spire... The cathedral and the cloister appear in two or more colors, all various-colored natural stones from the region. Of course, one has to climb a long staircase to reach the cathedral perched high above - in this (old) town, there is nothing that is not steep... Here, for most pilgrims, the path towards the Pyrenees and Spain begins (although few walk that distance in one go) - accordingly, everyone is 'excited' and 'fresh,' buying the pilgrim passport and shells for their backpacks in the cathedral. Early at 7 a.m. there is a pilgrim mass in the cathedral, every day. I decide to take the opportunity of a bed to sleep in and rise after seven - I also don't want to leave early as I still want to take a look at the city, besides I have been on the road for almost three months and do not feel the need to attend a mass that I wouldn’t understand anyway... I am the only pilgrim who did not leave the hostel before seven, and I am 'embarrassingly questioned' by the hospitaleros why I did not go to the mass, and my answers do not seem to convince them...
I leave Le Puy Monday at noon, heavily laden after shopping at the supermarket on the outskirts and have a picnic by the Loire - yes, for a short 1.6 km my path follows the wide Loire (it reminds me again of cycling along this wonderful river): huge, tall stone pillars of a railway bridge; at Brives-Charensac, beside the (also already old) bridge, there are still two arches of a bridge from the 12th century in or over the river, without continuation...
Initially, the landscape changes little, but: There are no more oncoming pilgrims! 'Behind' Le Puy, the hiking paths now become lonely and (unfortunately) there are no more surprises along the way as before (drinks for donations, resting places, cafes, water taps...) - clearly, I have since left the area of the often-trodden pilgrim paths. Over the past week, I encountered a good handful of oncoming hikers. The first one I met on the second evening after leaving Le Puy was a German woman who also set out in early March, but from southern Germany. The next morning, I met a 71-year-old Austrian at a well, who had started his hike in Lausanne... It is still the long-distance path GR 65, but in the classification of pilgrim paths, this section from Geneva to Le Puy-en-Velay is called 'Via Gebennensis.'
After the hot days, this week has brought fluctuating weather, thunderstorms, rain, and cold. So I have been looking for sleeping places 'under a roof' (once even in a generously clean, odor-free public toilet at a picnic area, or under the vaulted archway in front of the town hall meeting room in Saint-Jeures, or next to the bubbling water basin of an old covered drinking trough...); on Tuesday, I spent most of the day in a drafty, cold stone shelter, where luckily there are two wooden platforms so that I can unpack my bedding and lie in my sleeping bag while one thunderstorm after another pounds on the roof stones, it thunders, and the sun shines intermittently, so everything steams. I only continue my hike in the afternoon around five. On Thursday, it rains while I am in the woods in the 'Parc naturel regional du Pilat,' again altitudes of around 1200 m, with settlements only in the valley. Wet, cold and intermittently not really knowing why I am putting myself through this... I descend into the valley towards Saint-Sauveur while the trail actually continued at height to Bourg-Argental. However, there is nothing in this town - even the bakery and the restaurant, which are definitely still on my map, no longer exist: no prospect of warmth... and while the church is dry, it is cold. So now I must walk along the road the 7 km to Bourg-Argental, getting even more drenched from passing vehicles than I already am, plus I am freezing under the poncho (leaving my jacket and warm clothes nice and dry in my backpack!). Although I have little hope of being picked up in this condition, I stick out my thumb - and lo and behold, a woman takes me and my wet backpack into her small car without hesitation, even though the water is dripping from my hat... She's on her way to work, can speak a little English, and asks me where I am from and where I am going. There is a sign at the tourist office saying 'ferme'! I get annoyed, read the opening hours, wonder, and try it: the sign is just upside down behind the glass; it is open... It's nice and warm (and later outside even colder) and the young woman explains to me which accommodations are the cheapest here. I have no luck with two private accommodations (AB, or today they are simply not at home and thus have no guests), but after I finally got to drink a hot tea, I look for 'Fritkot', a fast food restaurant where there is supposedly a room for 18,- euros. It's actually not open, but the owner is there; yes, he can give me the 'pilgrim room' in the attic for 20,-, then I need to bring my own sleeping bag - that's fine with me. And so, shortly after noon, I end up in a 'detailed' accommodation in a half-renovated house in a room with only a tiny skylight very high up and a bunk bed without bed linen. But there is a hot shower two flights down, I am alone in the house and have a key for the back door... While it continues to rain until the next morning, I warm up again after a long hot shower in my sleeping bag, later go shopping for something to eat, and organize an old newspaper for my wet shoes; afterwards, I stay in my cave, sleeping until after 7 o'clock the next morning since it does not really get light in here...
Yesterday I then reached the Rhône valley. At first, it looked terrible everywhere from the storms of the previous day: branches and leaves on the paths, overflowing waters, the still-not-dry shoes from the wet tall grass of small paths drenched again... As a young buck jumps up right next to me, I am startled - but it seems more curious than scared, repeatedly stops and looks at me before leaping away like weightless through the grain with long, bouncing jumps. Shortly thereafter, I see an intact-looking dead badger by the way. Gradually, the landscape changes into vineyards; still a lot of ups and downs - often rocky-steep and tiring in the wet, then again such beautiful paths - and at the very special Chapelle de Calvaire, there is the view over the Rhône, wide and sparkling down in the valley. In Chavanay, I reach the river and then continue to walk about 6 km on the bike path (again a section that I cycled last year...) along the river - unfortunately, the view of the water is often obscured by bank undergrowth and for some time rather loud as there are large industrial plants on the opposite bank, but in Condrieu, then beautiful: evening sun, the vineyards over the river, the heights from which I had 'descended'... I sit on the river wall for a long time until it gets too cool for me, then I subtly slip into a white tent: various artists beautify the riverside promenade and have set up their work tents, in which tools, stones, wood, half-finished sculptures, cement bags, etc. are stored - I spoke with some of the artists to find out what they were doing. One tent is empty except for a beer table and two chairs. This way I can sleep 'unseen' directly on the banks of the Rhône - unfortunately, however, I also cannot look outside, but since I am tired, it doesn't matter. And I crawl out of the tent early enough this morning to still enjoy the beautiful morning light over the water before quickly hiking back up into the solitude of the mountains. Today, for the first time, I saw snow-capped peaks in the distance...
