For those that don’t know, I did this Camino exactly five years ago, almost to the day. The route back then was done with five of my six children, ages 9-17 at the time, 1,100 miles ( plus) that connected the Camino Le Puy to the Camino Norte with five glorious days in the Pyrenees.
This year we will repeat it, but only with my 16 year old daughter, Bronwyn, a precious age to share such an adventure. We will do the Le Puy route and the Frances route to Santiago this year with our same two variants as before, Racamadour and the Cele Valley. Steve and Aynsleigh drove Bronwyn and me to DC where we took a very relaxed and full flight to Paris.
Steve had gotten us reservations ( it took six months on their wait list) to eat in Virginia at The Three BlackSmiths, this was a treat of a lifetime. He arranged a wonderful Air BnB at Cozy in Culpepper with Penny and Paul. The Air BnB was made with love, filled with comfort and beauty and Penny and Paul instantly became dear to us. They offered to take the girls out to dinner for music and a winery while Steve and I enjoyed our romantic dinner. Penny sent us off with cookies and dessert that we actually continued to nibble on our first few days of our Camino, could she have known her goodies would be enjoyed in picnic style while trekking through France.
We landed in CDG and I used a service called BlaBlaCar to get a four hour drive from Paris to Le Puy. This saved us a couple hundred dollars and a lot of time. Our driver was awesome, “Audrey the Angel”, I would call her. I feel the universe has put some amazing new people in our paths lately. A new friend Anna came by the house in my final hours home to share some love and made me a sweet blue bracelet with a compass and whistle on it for our trip… an awesome new friend! We loved Penny and Paul so much that upon returning home we are going to join them for a fancy dinner at a Virgina winery to celebrate their anniversary.
Le Puy was bustling with activity, way more active than five years ago, few in masks, no evidence we are in another wave of the pandemic, assuring me I did the right thing keeping our plans to come. Two nights would be spent in Le Puy where we would find our favorite little Pizza spot for dinner and some small cafes for breakfast and lunch. Next update will be hiking …
