Camino 3 days on the trail Day 2: Thursday 17th July 2025

Monbonnet to Monistrol D’Allier

Communal breakfast and away, I think by 9.

What I’m failing to record are the conversations on the road and in the non-Camino hours with Paul and others. They are, of course, wide ranging. Sometimes serious or personal matters, and also trivial, funny, and bizarre. I suspect I’m relaxing into this new way of spending time.

Photos of the beautiful scenery, buildings, philosophical notes in toilets, fellow travellers are recorded.

Leaving the gite we immediately went the wrong way. Doubled back and then missed a turning. We ended up walking along a main road, tempted to do so by red and white bollards. Small red and white signs direct walkers along the Camino. Feeling very silly, realising our error, we walked for a few km on the road before taking a path back to the official Camino path to Monistrol D’Allier.

Next stop was a delightful corner in a village with a boulangerie and a bar. Nice thing about France: you can sit outside with a beer from the bar and eat the food you’ve bought elsewhere. Far better than English etiquette, that prevents such a heinous crime.

Met a happy group of seven or eight young men being led by a Catholic ‘father’ dressed in a long black cassock and a young Franciscan in his brown robes and ropes, who gave us a professional blessing at the chapel high up on a rock at Rochegude.

And on to impressive Monistrol D’Allier. Impressive due to a series of bridges allowing transport and people to cross deep ravines, looking down to a winding river…and a beach dotted with people. Walking across the iron bridge constructed by Eiffel, we arrived at ‘Le Repos du Pelerin’ gite and were shown to our room. Rucksacks are not to be left in rooms, so we unpack the minimum and put rucksacks in an outer hallway, strip down to shorts, and head off to the river for a swim. It’s difficult to convey just how refreshing it is after pouring with sweat mile after mile to immerse oneself in a flowing river and swim. The water is cool; not freezing.

Back to the gite for the evening meal at 7. Six of us who had crossed on the route shared a bottle of wine and endless chatter, sometimes theological – Philip Junior, being a recent convert, challenging the agnosticism of Philip Senior with onlookers making their own contributions. Most comments seem to be about man searching for God. I posed the alternative; that God is searching for us, and it is us that attempt to hide.

As darkness fell, the evening came to a close.