The mind boggles! I didn’t eat eggs for years (after growing up on a farm) because they were from the supermarket, I only started again when they started doing free range! Wouldn’t be without my girls!! 
1 Like
No problem! In fact I’m rather hooked on geology. The area you mentioned is particularly interesting because it’s so varied, with limestone, volcanic activity, lots of faults and glaciation plus river erosion. This technical paper talking about Aubrac might be useful…
2 Likes
Go to a good bookshop? We have a great book on our patch, plus a CD of a film that was made a few years back.
Thanks,
Believe it or not, never thought of going to a bookshop - probably because I buy virtually everything s/h online and the books I usually read (mainly from US university presses) are very expensive new.
However, your suggestion led me to consider our local library (obvious in retrospect). I’ve been a member for years, but stopped using it after I’d exhausted the local history section
For historical research, geological studies etc you can ask your local archives départementales, I think you can only read and take photocopies not take out.
1 Like
We’ve been wanting to do that for ages, but ours in Rodez was completely closed during the Covid years and afterwards they were moving to a brand new building, that took ages.
During the week-end de patrimoine everything about our village (approx one doc for every century or so) is displayed in the church (which remains closed for the rest of the year). So I’m not sure there’s more to find in the archive , tho’ that’s not an excuse for not trying. For instance the earliest indication of our house seems to be on a 1532 map, but its C14th vernacular style and location (on a small rocky outcrop higher above the Lot than neighbouring C15th houses (and one of the closest to the safety of the C11th chateau) suggest it was built some time earlier. But perhaps hard to verify without without dendritic dating of the puitres.
If parts of your house go back that far, try contacting the Diocèse, (not sure they would like you poking around their archives though).
Thanks, we were / probably still; are in the diocese of Conques, but OTOH so much changed after the Revolution.
There’s a great village story about revolutionaries coming to take the new (1779 vintage) church bells for melting into cannons; but being successfully driven off by the unarmed women of the village.
Conques diocese Rodez.
Has many similarities with Vezelay for centuries on the same pèlerin route both suffered from the decline in commercial traffic (pilgrims) at the same times. Both very nice places to visit and study.
Here’s a link you may enjoy reading about Vezelay…
https://www.persee.fr/doc/bec_0373-6237_1851_num_12_1_445003
Thanks,
Look forward to reading it - just had time at the moment to note the author’s name -
Léon De Bastard D’estang
Finally, back on thread, we’ve had an overnight optical clinic appointment in Montredon and on other Weds we’ve had non-walking visitors, or it’s been too hot for nothing but to repeat our well documented Sunday morning walks along the Lot.
But this morning we were going to do a proper walk from Bouillac, the next village down the Lot. However; while getting kitted out I noticed my wife was wearing a white linen dress, but with trekking sandals, so I didn’t say anything. The next hour was rather confusing and I hope it’s worry about her upcoming cataract op rather than early signs of Alzheimers that it was only when approaching the next village thar she realised where we were going to walk and that she was weazing her old sandals that had stretched too much for walking on rocky paths .
As you would expect, there followed a mature and balanced discussion between two very calm elderly adults about what we were going to do. Outcome? I would do the circular walk and she would pick me up a couple of hours later. And we then went our separate ways.
And after all that domestic stuff, finally some photos:-
First, an unsuccessful attempt at making an effective fence - a sort of low tech version of Trump’s equally inadequate wall on the Mexican border
Onward and upward, but an unsuccessful attempt to get the churches of St Martin de Bouillac and that of Bouillac (on the LHS) in the same picture. They’re separated by the river (and probably by genetics and culture). C’est la France profonde !
Meanwhile, the road becomes a path…
Sometime later, this walk that I’d done many times became something else…
TBC demain…
2 Likes
La continuation…
It’s been several years since I did a walk by myself and I’d forgotten how much better it is for thinking, and perhaps also looking. One can go at one’s own pace which is better for stopping to take photos.
This seemingly uninteresting photo is of a mediaeval road surface where a lot of rock was cut away to facilitate the passage of carts. Until the last century this was an important route connecting the rich farmlands on the plateau with the main transport system of the Lot and Garonne.
Never tire of looking down on our village from this viewing point
As one nears the plateau, the soil gets deeper and the chestnuts become larger, and less crooked. Apparently they can live for upwards of eight centuries and the next photo should have been of a complex old tree that had obviously been coppiced many times.
At that point I discovered my phone was not in the rucksack. I’d probably left it on a bench and set off back down, thinking if it was lost, I’d have to walk home and needed to figure out the shortest route. Fortunately the phone was still there, but I realised that instead of the usual circular walk, it was a unique opportunity to link and combine two separate routes.
Resuming the walk, it seemed to be taking longer than usual to reach the top and it dawned that while lost in my thoughts about the new route, I’d taken the wrong path at a fork. Eventually reached the plateau about 2kms west of where I should have been and right next to the start of the path on which I’d originally planned to descend. But like the phone, not lost and headed eastwards with the Lot and Cantal on my left and Puy Marie on the horizon, just visible through the heat haze.
It may look very tranquil, but the natives are armed!
After a few kms I joined the other route (on which I’ve posted previously) and headed south along a track towards the gorge above our house. I’ve walked past this very picturesque tumble down corp de ferme many times and assumed it would eventually become a ruin, but was pleasantly surprised to see someone’s taken it on - un homme courageux ! Hopefully one day he’ll be able to finish it and enjoy the view
Next, the second route’s view point - a perfect spot to stop and eat a perfect peach.
Now halfway down and only a couple of hundred metres above our house, yet still another 30 minutes of this ramble.
And finally the magical mediaeval wood that’s always a delight, no matter what time of year. It’s a steeply terraced forest that provided chestnut timber, nuts, flour and honey for the villagers and is still host to a large deer and sanglier population.
And finally, finally, home after walking twice as far as I’d intended. I’ll probably never do this walk again, but it was very good and I learned a lot.
Twenty-four hours later, just wish I had a younger pair of knees …
.
7 Likes
Great photos and story.
1 Like
Thanks, but you’re far too generous!
Some much better writing on walking is in Rebecca Solnitt’s Wanderlust: a history of walking
1 Like
Thanks for sharing the beautiful photos.
I love walking on my own, and I have done so most of the times I went to walk in France or even here in DK. My husband is great company and we usually walk short tours and once in a while long ones (55km).
Once I walked for a week with my cousin (Aumont-Aubrac – Figeac) and now she’s back to walk with me the traditional part of the GR65 from Figeac to Cahors in two weeks. We had a great time walking together. Lots of laughs and philosophical talks. It’s nice to be able to do both sometimes, with and without company 
3 Likes
Thanks
Would love to know the reason know why it’s the oldest/original route?
I’d love to know why it’s called that, because given the great age and importance of Rocamadour, one might have otherwise assumed that the oldest route went via there.
I also don’t know those details. Only that the Voie du Puy (which I refered to as the “traditional”) is called GR65, and the variantes have other “names” – Voie du Célé (GR651-GR36) and Voie de Rocamadour (GR6 and GR46). I think it’s because it’s the most popular/the busiest?
Maybe it’s the oldest route because its the most direct. Rocamadour is further to the north and is on the Dordogne, which flows north, whereas Cahors is on the Lot which flows in the right direction for Santiago prior to joining the Dordogne. So Rocamadour would have been a detour off the main route.
Thanks for helping me to work out answer my question
1 Like
The rando thread seemed the best place for this interesting article from today’s Guardian
I’ve contributed some book chapters on this sort of approach to the field that twenty or so years ago was being termed ‘postmodern geography’.
Getting to know somewhere through walking (or staying still) informs the transformation of undifferentiated space’ into ‘place’.
3 Likes
How beautiful 
I’m sure most of us in this forum could have written the article. Many lovely, relatable quotes like “Google Maps can tell you how a place looks, but a run tells you how it feels”. I could add hike - I love both.
I am going for a run now, and enjoy one more sunny day in this late summer, God knows there are few of them normally, this early September has been so generous - and I’ll be extra attentive to the paths under my feet and the fields around them.
3 Likes