Each year since 2002 Jenny has written day-by-day narratives of our walking trips in France.

Below are brief summaries of them, with an accompanying map. By using the zoom controls you can see the maps in greater detail.

Having nine maps on this page means that it loads quite slowly, so some patience is required.

Clicking the various links on this page will take you to a year’s diary, a short walk or a pilgrimage.

2002 diary

A daily diary of our 25 day walk.

We started with a 6 day walk in High Provence from Saint-André-les-Alpes by way of Castellane and Moustiers-Sainte-Marie to Gréoux-les-Bains.

We then walked for 19 days on the GR65 (The Way of Saint-Jacques or the Pilgrims’ Way) starting at le Puy-en-Velay.

We made a deviation down the river Célé on the GR651, from Béduer to Saint-Cirq-Lapopie, rejoined the main Pilgrim’s Way at Cahors and went on to Moissac.

2003 diary

A daily diary of our 34 day walk from Martel to Pau.

We started with a 5 day circuit in the Upper Dordogne from Martel, via Collonges-la-Rouge, Beaulieu and Carennac, to Rocamadour.

We then made our way to Gourdon and Lauzerte, to join the GR65 (The Way of Saint-Jacques or the Pilgrims’ Way), which we followed as far as Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port.

The final section was along the Pyrénnées on the GR10 to the valley of Somport, then down the Aspe River to Oloron-Saint-Marie and finally Pau.

2004 diary

A daily diary of our 37 day walk.

We began with a 5 day walk in Burgundy starting and ending in Beaune. We passed through Savigny-lès-Beaune, Meursault, Santenay and Nolay.

This was followed by a 32 day walk from le Puy-en-Velay through the Cévennes on the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail (GR70), passing over Mont Lozère to Florac.

We then left the GR70, travelling over Mont Aigoual and down via the Cirque de Navacelles to Lodève.

From Lodève we passed through the High Languedoc to Mazamet before joining the GR653 (the pilgrim Way of Arles) at Dourgne and continuing past Revel to the Canal du Midi and on via Toulouse and Auch to Pau.

2005 diary

A daily diary of our 51 day walk.

We started with a 19 day walk from Blois to Angoulême, exploring the Loire and Cher rivers as far as Tours, and then turning south on the pilgrim’s Way of Tours to Angoulême.

This was followed by a 32 day walk in the south-west.

From Terrasson we went down the Vézère and Dordogne rivers to Lalinde.

Catching the train back to les Eyzies, we proceeded upstream as far as Souillac, from where we made a loop in the upper Dordogne through Carennac, Beaulieu, Collonges and Martel to Rocamadour.

Then we continued south to the Lot river and the Gorges of the Aveyron, on our way to Albi and finally Revel, close to the Canal du Midi.

2006 diary

A daily diary of our 48 day walk through Burgundy and down the Loire.

Starting at Cluny, we walked north via Nolay to Autun. From there we continued through the forests of the Morvan, to Vézelay, Chablis and Auxerre.

Turning south, we followed the Yonne River and the Canal du Nivernais to Tannay, then turned west to join the Loire at Cosne-sur-Loire.

For almost the rest of the walk we went downstream on the Loire, past Orleans and Tours to Saumur, before finally running out of time at Saint-Mathurin-sur-Loire. Our only deviation was to Azay-le-Rideau and Chinon.

2007 diary

A daily diary of our 42 day walk from Gréoux-les-Bains to Angoulême.

We started by crossing the Luberon to Avignon, then entered the Cévennes, where we took the Robert Louis Stevenson Trail (GR70) in reverse to Florac.

From there we went down the Gorges of the Tarn to Albi, and took advantage of other rivers – the Aveyron, the Lot, the Dordogne, the Isle and the Dronne – on our zig-zag course to Angoulême.

2008 Diary

A daily diary of our eight day walk in Provence and the Drôme.

This was the first year that we were seriously affected by a health problem.

We walked from Saint-André-les-Alpes via Digne-les-Bains and Sisteron to Rémuzat, after which Keith’s kidney stone proved too much.

We hired a car in Avignon and drove for 28 days up the eastern side of France, finishing in Reims.

2009 Diary

A daily diary of our seven day walk on the upper Vézère.

Once again our intentions were cut short by a medical problem, reducing our walk from the hoped-for forty days to only seven.

We started on the Vézère river at Terrasson, the starting point for our downstream walk in 2005, and followed the river in the other direction, past Uzerche and Treignac, to the tiny village of Lacelle. Here we decided that Jenny’s eye needed attention at home, so we hitch-hiked to Limoges, got the train to Paris and flew back to Austalia.

2010 Diary

The daily diary of our 30 day walk from Cosne-sur-Loire to Auch will be loaded onto this website in October/November 2010.

This expedition allowed us to link up various loose ends from previous walks. We began in Cosne-sur-Loire, the place where we had joined the Loire in 2006, but this time we headed south, upstream to Fourchambault, where we merged with Way of Vezelay and left the river in favour of the Canal du Berry. This took us into the old province of Berry, the country of George Sand, with its peaceful fields divided by great hedges, a part of France still relatively unvisited by tourists.

Pressing on into Limousin, passing from one pilgrim church to another, past Limoges and into Périgord, we crossed the Dordogne at Bergerac, the Lot at Castelmoron and the Garonne at Aiguillon. It was a land of plenty, full of vines and punctuated by bastide villages, relics of the Hundred Years War. Despite the weather, which had been wet and got wetter, we arrived at our destination, Auch, in time to have a day of repose before getting the train back to Paris.

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