146 year ago Robert Louis Stevenson, the author of Treasure Island and Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, wrote a travel book called Travels with a Donkey in the Cévennes (my Gen Z readers can ask their parents what a book is). The book is the story of his 228km walk from Le Monastier to St-Jean-du-Gard, and I will be blogging my way through the same walk over the next 10 days (full disclosure, due to professional commitments I will only be doing 192km as I will need to leave before the last 2 stages).
Before I delight you with stories of the quaint French countryside, you may reasonably ask how this came about. My wife Fianna - yes I know all of you are aware Fianna is my wife, but maybe this blog will become a social media success therefore requiring more context for my readers. Anyway, as I was saying, my wife Fianna has a friend called Felicity who in early April decided to do Stevenson's walk and invited 5 of her girlfriend's including Fianna to come along. They all sensibly pleaded other engagements, but Fianna, spotting an opportunity for 2 weeks of peace and quiet, volunteered me to go in her place. I'm not sure that Felicity is getting the best end of this deal, but she has now adjusted her plan to walking with one overweight Frenchman rather than five chatty women.
Having spent a day booking train tickets and accommodation, I then had to prepare for the trip. Back in 1879 Stevenson spent 1 month in Le Monastier acquiring the perfect donkey, inventing a sleeping bag and choosing travel necessities (including 1 revolver, 1 bottle of Beaujolais, 1 tin of Bologna sausage and 1 eggbeater!). For my part, none of these items seemed essential and living in the 21st century, my choices were slightly different (1 laptop for work, 1 wireless mouse for laptop, 1 smartphone, 1 kindle, 1 smartwatch, 1 charger). I did leave behind my tablet, my camera and my wireless headphones, thus demonstrating my capacity to disconnect.
This morning, having been informed (by my smartphone) to expect rain in the Cévennes I left the house early to buy a rain hat and proceed to the Gare de Lyon. Getting there with plenty of time to spare, I headed towards the waiting hall benches to sit down. Having spotted a seat and put down my 8.5kg backpack, I noticed a small backpack seemingly forgotten next to me. I asked around, and nobody claimed ownership. At this point, a young woman sitting on the other side of me said she would take it to an attendant and walked off with it. A few minutes later, an elderly lady appeared with her 2 grandchildren (I'm guessing here, in case a reader was wondering if this was fact-checked), and asked where grandchild's backpack had gone. I told her a young woman had just left with it to find an attendant, but I could see the grandmother was not impressed with my explanation. I tried to reassure her, saying the young woman had seemed very nice and helpful, but to no avail. She left with the two children in tow, heading towards the platforms. Two minutes later, the young woman reappeared with the backpack, having failed to find an attendant. By this time the grandmother had disappeared, and I was beginning to think I was stuck in some kind of time warp where the grandmother, the young woman, and the backpack could never be in the same place at the same time. Luckily, I spotted the grandmother about to go through the ticket gates and I dashed after her shouting "Madame, Madame". I caught up with her just in time, and the young boy was reunited with his backpack. Thus, a major catastrophe was avoided, well ...Ok... a minor inconvenience. The moral of this story is that people will go out of their way to help others, or if you listen to my wife : Don't forget your stuff!
A 3-hour TGV ride brings us to Saint-Étienne and then a slow regional train takes us along the Loire river through wooded hills, old farmhouse and occasional monasteries to our starting point of the Pay-en-Velay a charming small town set-on a hilly outcrop. We dropped off our stuff at the guest house and then Felicity being a keen photographer she proceeded to drag me to the main sites of the town (a most interesting activity even though everything was closed as it was past 7pm)
Well, that's it for this first post. Don't hesitate to post your comments, they will be blithely ignored.
