Bonne Route

After a sleepless night in Lyon wondering and worrying about whether I had packed the right gear and being thoroughly intimidated by the thought of starting this Camino Le Puy, I was somewhat comforted when we walked into the Lyon train station at 6:30am and the first people we saw and met were a pilgrim (perelin) couple from Austria. Pilgrims are easily identified by the large packs and the maps and guide books. Meeting other pilgrims gave me a bit of confidence that at least we were heading in the right direction. Angela and Wolfgang planned to walk some sections of the camino, drive through other sections and stay at pre-booked hotels along the way; no crowded gites with shared facilities. Angela did say that one of her friends scoffed that that was no way to do a camino but Angela just said it was her camino and her way. Good for her. Those hotels sound pretty good to me.

After a very comfortable train ride, we arrived in Le Puy. We wished our Austrian couple farewell and said we'd see them at the morning Mass and headed directly to the Cathedral to get our credenciales. There is an active convent in Le Puy and the nuns in the sacristy issued us our pilgrims' passports. This being Sunday morning, we stayed for Mass especially when we realized there was a special camino service planned for the local pilgrims' group here. The highlight of the Mass was a youth choir's version of the pilgrims' song Ultreia. I have to say, with apologies to Tom Friesen, it was certainly more tuneful and melodic than our yearly Bayfield renditions. After Mass we climbed up and up (shades of trials to come) to the statue Notre Dame - with our loaded pack.

France is still a hold out to our old Sunday Blue Laws and so everything closes up at 2pm. We did manage to find one restaurant open then back to our hotel where we booked gites for the next two nights. So tomorrow it,s Mass at 7am and then "bonne route". We're off.