[Gocamino] [Santiagobis] Trip report Arles to Dourgne - Long

Mon Sep 29 08:18:53 PDT 2008

Thank you so much for having taken the time to write such long e mail to help all of us.  I appreciate your time and wish you all the best.

Patricia de Miami

-----Original Message-----

From: Ralph Alcorn &lt;rbalcorn at gmail.com&gt;

To: santiagobis at yahoogroups.com; gocamino at oakapple.net

Cc: Susan Alcorn &lt;backpack45 at yahoo.com&gt;

Sent: Sun, 28 Sep 2008 10:10 pm

Subject: [Santiagobis] Trip report Arles to Dourgne - Long

Summary - Starts flat, long days and not too interesting, but after Montpellier, some true mountain trails, great views, and quite a bit more rugged than the Le Puy route. Most days no facilities between start of day and end of day, so need to carry lunch supplies. Our plan followed the normal stages, and km per day were typically in the 22 to 27 km range. After three days of dragging in tired each night, and having to start early the next day without seeing the village, we modified our plan and stuck in some short days of 13 km or so. That meant we didn't reach Toulouse, but had a more enjoyable trip. Usually reserved the next night's accommodation, and regretted it the few times we didn't. We saw few pilgrims, but pilgrim level accomodations have few beds, so best to call ahead. This trip was in Sept. and weather was good. Only wore raingear a few hours. It was quite windy in some spots and I wore my
 wind jacket daily, and wind pants for about 3 days. We used trail runners with no problems. Having French at a sufficient level to carry on basic conversations with French pilgrims would greatly improve the experience.

Details - 

Guidebooks - We started out with three, the 2007 CFSJ guide for Arles - Puente la Reina i. Arles to Toulouse by Marigold Fox, the Le Chemin d'Arles vers Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle by Balen & Siréjol, and the miam-miam-dodo du chemin d'Arles  (the last two in French). We also carried some of the updates to the CFSJ 2004 guide, since they didn't seem to be incorporated in the 2007 guide. Part way thru, we bought Sur le chemin de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle La via Tolosana, la voie du soleil by Lepere & Dehnel (in French). This is a 2008 version though nothing in it contains the date, and there is a 2003 version with the same ISBN.

We also carried the IGN 1/100000 topo maps 64, 65, 66. I highlighted the route and cut it out so we just had strip maps with topo info. We can barely read French, but used the strip maps from the Balen & Siréjol guide daily, the text rarely. I got the Lepere guide because it had maps in the back that I thought were more detailed than what we had, and it had some city maps. When I looked at it closely, I realized that the maps in back were the same as the IGN maps we already had; though in some cases their trace of the gr653 route was more a
ccurate than on the IGN maps. Their city maps were office of tourism city center maps of Arles, Montpellier, Castres and Toulouse with the gr653 route added. I would not carry the Lepere guide again unless I read French much better. I would just print the city maps from the internet. 

Hint - I've got a little waterproof envelope about 6x9 inches that I got from REI. Each day I tore out the relevant CFSJ guide page(s) and put them in so they could be read on one side. I tore out the Balen & Siréjol strip map pages daily, and put them on the other side. That way I had a light document in my hand, and the full guides packed away.

Waymarks - until after Montpellier, marginal - frequently painted over or absent, and in some cases there were reroutings where we had to decide whether to follow the CFSJ directions or the waymarks.  Sometimes the waymarks didn't correspond to any of the guides, and the guides didn't correspond to each other. After Montpellier they were there, but no paint was wasted on extra waymarks before absolutely needed, and it helped to have two pairs of eyes looking for waymarks. The first three days, we got lost every day for a short while, and in going into Vauvert, were totally lost, and just kept asking people for the direction to Vauvert, and kept following small roads and flagging cars for information until we got there. Some of that is just getting adjusted to the style of a particular guidebook's directions. On one sen
tence in the CFSJ guide for getting out of Arles, the beginning of the sentence gives multiple details on street by street basis for getting to the edge of town and without taking a breath ends with "to the D37 at Saliers". We use our Balen and Siréjol strip map to guide us, and eventually find that the D37 is some 12km and many intersections later.

Accomodations - we made reservations ahead every night - sometimes two nights ahead for weekends, except once for Montpellier. We thought a big city would always have someplace, so didn't call till Vendergues. City center was totally booked & after about 10 calls to tourist office & hotels, found a place on the outskirts of town that we had to taxi to. As it turned out, it was within walking distance of the tram, so the next morning we were able to take tram and bus to Grabels. We didn't call Castres till night before, and couldn't find a place. Our gite host then called for us the next morning, and amazingly enough, found a place for us at a hotel we had called and got a "complet" response. Since our French is poor, we first called miam miam dodo places with an English spoken flag, but muddled thru in French if no English sites. We couldn't handle places that just had an answering machine in French. We did not book at pilgrim minimum cost Accomodations if others were available, thinking those should be reserved for those going all the way to Santiago. Several times we booked in a gite just to meet other pilgrim
s and found we were the only ones there. Another time the muni gite was full and they put us into an overflow gite, and we met maybe six other pilgrims. We saw few to no people walking during the day. There was a group of five French women who always seemed to find some unlisted place to stay, but our French wasn't up to that. Robert of the "Solitary Walker" blog told us he usually walked into a place without reservations, and found a place, but he was staying at the lowest cost church based or municipal based facilities. Incidentally, it turned out that Robert and I were both following Rebekah's Moratinos blog moratinoslife.blogspot.com  .

Phone - for the first time we carried a cell phone. I ordered an unlocked quad band gsm phone online, and bought an Orange sim card and Orange recharge card from a France Telecom store in Paris. That gave me about 50 euros of time. I had to add about 15 Euros later. It was very useful for this trip. One problem - the charger. I fully charged the battery at home. After about a week in France, I tried to recharge it, and the charger failed. I had assumed the charger would handle 240/110 volts ok, just as my camera battery charger did. Not so. We finished the walking part of our trip on the original charge to the battery. For the last night, we had to ask our host to phone ahead for us. When we got back to Paris for the return home, I asked the hotel if they had a spare charger. They brought out a box, and o
ne matched my phone, so I am ok for next year.

The Route - 

Arles to Montpellier - flat, hot, muggy, little mosquitos. We carried 2.5 liters of water each, and the one time we ran out was near the end of the Gallargues to Vendargues stretch. After that we always carried an extra 2 liters, but never used it.

Saint-Gilles to Vauvert - this is one of the few lunch break towns. We got lost on the CFSJ guide page 14 1st para. Never found the turn sharp R along a wooded valley-bottom.

Gallargues - if you stay at the excellent Lou Cigalou CH in Aigues-Vives, you need to call them. Don't call where the gr653 leaves the D363, but walk up the D363 about 1/2 k to the railroad tracks where there is a little unattended Gare with parking areas. Call from there and say you are at the Gare. The CFSJ guide and the miam miam dodo frequently use the road numbers, but there usually isn't a sign on the road giving the numbers, and the locals don't know the road numbers.

Leaving Gallargues - waymarks missing or misleading, but walk on the road on the left south? Edge of the A9 towards the bridge, and under the bridge you will find the waymarks again, leading to Villetelle. 

Leaving Villetelle, the waymarks don't correspond to any guidebook, don't take you past the roman bridge, but instead head straight for the intersection of the A9 and D110, and from there follow the A9 on one side or the other to Vendergues.
=0
A

Montpellier to Grabels. The CFSJ 2004 updates suggested taking the 21 bus from Vendargues to Montpellier center, and then the tram 1 line to the euromedicine station, then the 24 bus to the end of the line in Grabels - direction Le Pradas. Don't go to the end of the line. About 5 minutes before, the road splits with sports stadium or something like that signed to the left, and the bus goes to the right. You want to get off there and walk up the road towards the stadium. You will cross a bridge over a river in a few hundred yards, and you turn left, back towards Montpellier. You will walk thru a parking lot and a riverside park with the river on your left. You will cross a little bridge that jogs to the right with a little stream under it. Cross and continue till you see a bridge crossing the river on your left. At that point, you will see waymarks indicating that you turn right and go up over the hill. At that point, you are back on the trail.

The 4k road walk along the river Hérault is incredible. Walk on the river side, and keep looking into the gorge, water spurting from the sides, wonderful.

Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert is a beautiful little village, and the climb out of town the next day is your first taste of a true mountain trail. We stayed at Hotel Rest. Guilhaume d'Orange at foot of village.

Joncels - CH Villa Issiates excellent Accomodations and food - pilgrims welcome.

Le Bousquet -20CH La Borio - nice - about 1/2 k beyond town away from trail. Owners English - American - give ride back to trail.

Saint Gervais - we stayed in a low cost private gite - Mr. Michel Bros. We were the only ones there, and they shared their meal with us. His mother had made the wine.

Anglès - Gite La Guariguette - historic hotel now decorated with artistic flair - we were only ones there. Had our own huge well lighted room. Neighbor let us in. Owner prepared simple meal for us.

Boissezon - fine new public gite - we had our own room with double bed and shower. Cafe owner was host and found us a place to stay in Castres.

Revel - taxied here from Dourgne and walked around town till noon. Waited for 12:20 bus to Toulouse. Others came and waited as well. Bus came, people crowded to door, we waited for crowd to subside, but when got to door, bus full. For the next bus, an hour later, we weren't so polite, but got on.

I did the initial planning on a google spreadsheet with km per day, etc, and made a copy with the actual walked trip when we got home.

Google Document link for original plan:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pPFto0EzOaDsxzFnUiiYXWw&hl=en 

Google Document link for trip as walked:

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pPFto0EzOaDsZbLR-dHQgVw&hl=en 

-- 

Ralph Alcorn

http://www.backpack45.com/camino2.html

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