After talking to my pilgrim friend Aldo (see posts dated October 17-20 2016), I was prepared to walk the whole of the GR653A without running into any other pilgrims on the way. But as soon as we left Menton in the morning, we found company! Phillipe is a semi-retired gardener from Mougins (near Cannes) who walked to Santiago earlier this year and is now spending a few days exploring the part of the trail near his home. After realising that he was staying at the same convent as us this evening, we ended up walking together all day. And what a day - 24 km with an elevation gain of almost 800 metres!
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Phillipe with the olivier millenaire - one of only a few ancient olive trees in France which survived the legendary freeze of 1956, when 90% of the country's olive trees were killed (see https://www.mirabeauwine.com/the-devastating-frost-of-1956/). |
The trail climbed steeply from sea level to Roquebrune-Village, a colourful village with a fortress perched high above Menton. Here we temporarily misplaced the trail, giving us a good opportunity to explore the winding alleys of this lovely village and admire the view toward Monaco far below!
This is truly a two-way trail, because besides being an itinerary of naturalistic and historic interest, it is also a link between the Camino de Santiago and the Via Francigena pilgrimage route to Rome. We crossed paths with a British couple who set out from London and are on their way to Rome!
After completing their walk, Alison Gelder and Ian Smith recorded their adventures in the volume Stepping Out: On Pilgrimage to Lourdes and Rome, a very interesting read available on Amazon Kindle.
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| View looking back over Menton towards Italy |
View of Monaco
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| Quarry of the stone that built Monaco |
Our destination for tonight! Sanctuaire de Laghet!
Upon arrival at the Santuaire we were welcomed by friendly nuns in white habits who showed us to our rooms and convened us for supper at 7. There are four of us pilgrims here - besides us and Phillipe there is an Austrian lady, also going to Arles. And four technicians who are working on the church organ. We were joined at dinner by a body of gendarmes, not sure why they were dining in a nunnery!
But then, at one time I never thought I would have been, either!
Stunning views from so high up. I will have to look up millenaire- perhaps it means the olive trees are 1000 years old.
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