2017-04-27 Le Puy (2 / 480 km)

Up very early. Breakfast in the reception room of the Gite. Quite a lot of people. Then off across dark streets to the cathedral and the morning mass at seven. Well there I noted that there were fairly many pilgrims. What had I expected? Max 20 I would say.

It proved to be around 60 at the gathering after the mass. From all parts of the world. A Norwegian woman just happened to stand next to me. She came from Bergen and planned to bike first to St-Jean-Pied-de-Port and then onward to Santiago. What more? A couple of persons from South Korea, one from Japan, one from Australia, some from Canada, others from the US. And of course a lot of people from France and Germany. A rather special mass. I understand why people want to start from Le Puy.

Then "the gang of four" went for morning coffee, a farewell coffee that ended in me saying farewell to the rest. I continued to the railway station. Notre Dame de France on her hill greeted me silently with an "au revoir" - see you later.

But I was not alone at the station. First I met a guy from Germany who liked to walk alone. He was there to fix his ticket since he planned to go home the next day. Then I spoke to couple from Luxembourg where she had got some problems with acing joints. She had first got that when they some time ago traveled around in Mexico. Probably some infection. Antibiotics cured the illness she thought earlier, but not really, now it had returned. Difficult. They were on their way home for her to cure the illness more definitely.

I first had to take a bus to Saint-Éntienne and then train from there to Lyon. They were repairing the tracks to Le Puy. I later arrived to the main railway station in Lyon, Parte de Dieu. Realized that it actually was a tram leaving from the outside that should take me to the airport. But that tram proved to be a wolf in disguise. Well outside the streets it behaved like a high speed train. The airport Saint Exupery was much bigger that I had realized. Two to three times Gothenburg. It was in a rebuilding process with the famous Calatrava as architect, among others.

After some searching I found a room in a cheap hotel, IBIS, at the end off the runway. There was a confusion were it was located. Signs pointed at another place than the right one. Got a room, printed my ticket back home and slept.

The day after is not much to say about the day after except that I flew home uneventful via Brussels. And that's it!

En la madruga las siete visitamos la catedral por la misa peregrina. ¡Fuimos sesenta personas un día normal! Le Puy esta unos de las cuatro salidas famosas de los caminos de Santiago desde Francia. Después la café común final. Yo continué hacia la estación ferrocarril y los otros hacia su día final en Le Puy. ¡Hasta la vista!