Italy to Santiago II Part 1: Via Domitia Day 22: Rest day in Venterol

While some might be daunted at the prospect of walking for weeks on end and staying somewhere different every night, while keeping themselves fed and watered, it is simply a matter of careful planning.

- Paddy Dillon, The South West Coast Path From Minehead to South Haven Point (2010)

Not a great day for being outdoors...

Rocky the cat agrees!

The Via Domitia / GR 653D is a trail that requires particularly careful planning. Like its sister trail running closer to the coast from Menton to Arles, the Via Aurelia / GR 653A, it passes through tiny and remote villages with limited opportunities to access food and accommodations; and it involves a lot of walking in mountainous terrain, where one cannot plan on walking 40 kilometres in a day just to reach a hotel. But I had a whole day to spend on careful planning, during my day of rest waiting out the rain in Venterol. And due to a fortunate coincidence, planning for the remainder of the route looks easier now!

I had been wondering what I would do with a whole day ahead of me and zero kilometres to walk, but there turned out to be plenty to keep me occupied! After a breakfast of whole-wheat bread with homemade jam and coffee, I did my exercise routine - the one I do at home on rainy days (and not only). That took an hour or so. Then I read for a while and started researching the route and accommodations for the next few days. I began by calling about accommodation at the end of the next stage, in La Motte du Caire, only to be told that both of the chambres d'hôtes in town were closed for holidays. The owners of the first place I contacted were away, but Jacques, the owner of Le Clos du Verger, first told me he already had a full house with relatives visiting - I could hear children playing in the background - then called me back to say he had found me a room chez amis. The address was pretty close to his own, so they must be neighbours as well as friends! I accepted gladly. I was just looking into options for the next day when two ladies arrived at Gîte L'Asphodele to have lunch and speak to the owner. Christophe had told me he was expecting a visit from les Amis de Saint-Jacques, so I kept my ears perked, and when the visitors had finished eating, I went into the dining hall to introduce myself.

One of the visitors turned out to be Sylvie, the contact person for accommodations on the next section of the Via Domitia, with whom I had already been communicating via WhatsApp. I took advantage of the opportunity to ask her some questions about the route for the coming days, and she gave me her recommendations and offered to contact the nuns in Châteaufort to ask if they could put me up two days from now. The convent is a very special place,  she said, and worth walking an extra 3.6 kilometres off-route to visit. From there, she said, the nuns would be able to show me a shortcut to get back on the route. On Friday I should be in Sisteron, and on Saturday at Sylvie's home in Peipin; after that, she would put me in touch with people who host pilgrims in their homes in various towns all the way down the road to Arles! And any time I was in difficulty in the next few stages, I could call her and she would come and pick me up. So now I have my guardian angel for the next section of the trail!

Sylvie and her companion were not here to meet me, of course. They were here to speak to Christophe about an event they are helping to organise for next year, a Holy Year of Saint James: Bourdons Pèlerins 2027, a relay walk along the various Ways of Saint James from the Italian border all across southern France and Spain. One of the three sub-groups will be taking the Via Domitia route, starting in Mongenèvre on March 17 (not sure how they are planning to deal with the snow), and when they get to Venterol, they will be stopping overnight here at Gîte écologique l'Asphodele.

And it's good that they are! This comfy, cosy place is perfect as an overnight stop - or for spending a rainy day resting up! The "pilgrim room" where I am staying has space for six people, and there are other rooms of various sizes too, as well as a large dining room with a very long table and a cosy sitting area with sofas by the fireplace. Christophe offers a special deal for pilgrims, including breakfast and a vegetarian dinner for the same price as an ordinary, non-pilgrim guest would pay only for a bed. There are plenty of books to read, in French but also in English - Christophe studied English, and his English is surely better than my French, though we have been conversing in French, so far... I need the practice! 😅

The dining hall and sitting room

Italy to Santiago II Part 1: Via Domitia Day 21 Nôtre Dame du Laus - Venterol

The bear went over the mountain, 

The bear went over the mountain, 

The bear went over the mountain...

To see what he could see!

And what d'you think he saw? 

And what d'you think he saw? 

He saw another mountain, 

He saw another mountain, 

He saw another mountain...

And what d'you think he did?

He climbed the other mountain, 

He climbed the other mountain, 

He climbed the other mountain...

To see what he could see! 

And what d'you think he saw? 

And what d'you think he saw? 

He saw another mountain....

(ad infinitum)

- traditional campfire song, to be sung to the tune of "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow", or, if you're French, "Malbrough s'en va-t-en guerre"

Looking back at some of the mountains I have come over

I keep thinking I'm going to be out of the mountains soon, but there are always more of them, around the corner, over the hill... on the other side of the mountain when I get to the top!

Leaving Nôtre Dame du Laus after a hearty breakfast, I followed the hairpin bends in a little road through the forest, climbing at a steady gradient up to Col du Tourrand at 1048 metres. 

Apple orchard, protected from birds

Coming down the other side of the pass, I found myself again at the bottom of the Durance valley, among vineyards, apple orchards and cultivated fields. I crossed the river and began to climb up the other side, coming to the village of Les Tourniaires, where I had originally planned to end this stage. It's good that I didn't, because it was only noon when I got there; I sat on a bench outside the Mairie and ate some of the food I had bought at the market in Chorges, and hadn't eaten because I was so well provisioned at the sanctuary. Right next door to the Mairie (town hall) is Halte Dodo, the pilgrim gîte where I had enquired about staying; it was shut because the owner was not well. Dodo is French baby-talk for sleep, while Miam-Miam means eat (it is pronounced almost like "yum-yum"), hence the name of the popular series of French guidebooks to pilgrim accommodations, Miam-miam-dodo. The first time I heard these guidebooks mentioned by a French pilgrim, a decade ago, I couldn't figure out why the funny name! 😅 I would have thought that these guidebooks, which have been published for 25 years now and are almost as thick and heavy as a telephone directory, would be pretty much obsolete now that one can find all the necessary information on the (weightless) internet; but actually they are still being updated annually, and can be ordered from the publisher at this link. 

Lunch break outside Halte Dodo over, I continued on my way up the next mountain. I should mention that today I was not following the GR 653D Via Domitia trail, which would have taken me to Gap, but following a shortcut devised by a German pilgrim and shared on Outdoor Active here, which cuts out Gap entirely and goes directly to Venterol, saving a day. I was a bit nervous about leaving the official GR trail, which comes with a sort of guarantee that it will be maintained and waymarked (by the Fédération Randonnée) and will not take you onto private property, a dangerous road or a dangerous cliff. Well, this route did all those things... briefly. It was in some places waymarked in yellow, which in France means a secondary trail, but I could never be sure that the yellow markings actually corresponded to the route I wanted to take, and had to keep checking the GPS track downloaded from Outdoor Active. For most of the day the route was absolutely fine, but just when I was thinking how clever I was for finding this shortcut, the iffy bits came along. 

The route went down the side of a major highway, but only for a few hundred metres, turning off at the first available opportunity.  So far so good. Then it went up a dirt road marked "Private property" and "Beware of guard dog". Not so good! There turned out to be two farmhouses on the road, each with a "guard dog"; but one of the dogs was too elderly and lame to be bothered chasing strangers, and the other barked but let me pass. My strategy if it had caused any problems would have been to call out, hoping the owners would hear me (or hear the dog), apologise for "mistakenly" being on their property and ask them to hold the dog until I got off it again!

The last difficulty was the worst, and the one I would encourage future walkers to avoid by taking a longer route by staying on the gravel road. At the end of the day, when I was only a couple of kilometres away from my accommodation "as the crow flies", I couldn't find the path through the woods suggested by the Outdoor Active GPS track, and was resigned to walking the long way around the base of the next mountain - five and a half kilometres instead of two or so. Then I spotted a path going off into the woods, marked in yellow and going in the right direction, though not in exactly the same spot as it was supposed to be. Paths get moved, I reasoned, due to changes in property ownership, landslides and so on. And the yellow marking suggested it was an official path, and would lead somewhere. It was, and it did - joining up with the path shown on the GPS track - but it included a hair-raising scramble over a sheer slope of loose shale, on a path about six inches wide. There was a sort of metal cage to stop the gravel from shifting, and I hung onto that for dear life with my upward hand as I picked my way slowly and carefully across the slope, holding both my trekking poles in the other hand (on the downward side) and practically crawling across. I must admit I called upon the assistance of Nôtre Dame du Laus here, hoping she would appreciate the fact that I had visited her sanctuary, and get me across safely! And she did 🙏

Pretty scenery, but....

Um, yeah.... 

Once across this crumbly slope, the rest of the way into Venterol was easy. I got to my gîte early and let myself in through the garden gate, but as check-in time was not supposed to be until five, and nobody seemed to be around, with no doorbell to ring, I put down my pack and poles in the garden, beside the door, and went out again to explore the village. 

This took only a few minutes, as there was not much to explore! I came back to Gîte l'Asphodele and this time, I could hear people inside. I tapped on the glass door and the owner came to let me in, saying he hadn't been expecting me until at least four. I told him I had walked too fast! 😅 He showed me to a large room with one double bed and four bunks, with wooden cupboards to put all your possessions in, which is used as either a family room or a pilgrim dormitory, he said. It has its own toilet and shower, though I was advised to wait an hour or so for the hot water to heat up before attempting to take a shower.

I think I'll do that now! 

Sanctuaire de Nôtre Dame du Laus - Venterol 19.5 km

The unofficial shortcut (in yellow) as compared to the official route of the GR 653D through Gap (in red). The red dot marks the location of the Sanctuary, where the two routes diverge, while the blue dot is Halte Dodo, a possiblestopping-place. The two routes converge again at Venterol.

Italy to Santiago II Part 1: Via Domitia Day 20 Chorges - Nôtre Dame du Laus

Soyez realistes, demandez l'impossible

(Be realistic: demand the impossible)

- on a card sold at the Sanctuaire de Nôtre Dame du Laus bookshop 

I woke up late in my quiet, comfortable flat in Chorges. It took me a while to figure out how to use the espresso machine (you have to put water into it before you can make coffee! 😅) and eat my porridge while finalising arrangements for the next couple of days. My good luck has come to an end: rain is in the weather forecast, particularly on Tuesday, when there is an 80% chance of rain, all day. Tuesday will be exactly three weeks since I started walking, so I figured I deserved a day of rest! I had been planning to walk 15 km today, another 15 km tomorrow, and for Tuesday just a short walk of less than ten kilometres in the rain; but the check-in time for the place I wanted to stay was five o'clock, so what would I do all day until then? I decided it would be better to walk a longer day tomorrow and then stay two nights in the same place: an "eco-gíte" which offers a special deal for pilgrims, including a vegetarian dinner and breakfast, and has a library and a yoga room... sounds perfect for a day of rest in the rain!

Having called to make my reservation there, I packed up and left the apartment. It being Sunday morning, I expected to find myself in a sleepy French village, but as soon as I opened the door of my building I found myself in the midst of a lively Sunday market! I bought a sizeable chunk of cheese, a piece of spinach borek from an eastern European vendor, and a baguette and a pastry from the bakery, which was not only open but had a queue! There were people in the café and on the street, and all the shops were open: quite a different scene from the previous evening!

Meanwhile, in the big cities of France...

Mass was about to begin in the village church at 10:30,  but I wanted to get going as I knew it might rain later in the day. I walked out of town, crossing the highway via an underpass and the railway at a level crossing, then heading past a supermarket and shopping centre and out into the countryside. 

I climbed up to the village of Montgardin along a small road, and then turned down a forest path which took me to the bottom of a broad green valley. Fields of wheat and hay alternated with flocks of grazing sheep and cattle. The sheep were guarded by dogs, but they were always behind an electric fence. Heading up the road through the valley, I could hear dogs barking, but as I had crossed paths with two walkers, a couple of cyclists and a jogger, with a dog of her own, I figured that if they had no trouble getting past the shepherd dogs, neither would I. I came to a flock of sheep passing one by one through a narrow passageway between one field and another, exactly like the sheep you count when you can't sleep, with much jingling of bells. Then I passed a flock in a fenced enclosure, guarded by three very large dogs, which barked and growled as I went past.  Looking back, I saw to my dismay that the enclosure was not fenced in at the other end, and the dogs were coming out after me! But their demeanour was by no means threatening,  now that I had passed by their flock; they walked with me for a little way, just to make sure I was really going. Then the dogs guarding the next flock of sheep up the road started barking, and the first set of dogs went over to bark back at them across the fence, as if holding a sort of sheepdog conference. 

After winding along the valley of the Avance for several kilometres, my path turned uphill, climbing 180 metres to the Sanctuaire de Nôtre Dame du Laus. At first I walked along the road, following the stations of the cross, but after two or three stations I turned onto a footpath through the woods, heading steeply uphill and cutting out the U-shaped curves in the road. The footpath came out by the Chapelle du Précieux Sang, where I rejoined the road up to the Sanctuary proper. 

The Sanctuaire de Nôtre Dame du Laus stands on the spot where the Virgin Mary repeatedly appeared to shepherdess Benoîte Rencurel over a period of 54 years, between 1662 and 1718. Here's a video presenting the shrine - in better weather than when I saw it! 

It was too early to check into my room when I arrived at two, so I spent some time in the large and comfortable bar next to the sanctuary. I ordered a beer and a lunch special in French, with some difficulty, then realised that the young bartender was actually British! 😄

I sat writing up this account in the bar, where lots of people were hanging about, eating, drinking, chatting, even napping on the sofas! The sanctuary seems to be a popular spot for a Sunday outing, as well as for gatherings of church groups; there is even a busload of Canadians! It has an affordable full-service restaurant as well as the bar, making it a convenient stopping-place for pilgrims; the hôtellerie offers rooms of all sizes and price ranges. I chose the cheapest, and my Eco room is practically a cubbyhole under the stairs!  I attended vespers in the church, then retired to my tiny room to rest before enjoying a delicious dinner in the hall. Only there did I realise how many people there were, staying at the sanctuary! In the crowded dining hall, I shared a table with five other people: a friendly elderly couple, a young woman from a village near Marseille, and a mother and son from Milan, who however live in France. Unfortunately for me, they were at the other end of the table, so we had to converse in French; it would have been rude to speak across the table in a language the other diners couldn't understand. 

A regional specialty: Ravioles de Champsaur

The crowded dining hall 

The view from my window, in the rain

Chorges - Nôtre Dame du Laus 15.5 km