Turns out Le Puy is a beautiful village with a lovely old town centred around its cathedral, the Notre Dame du Puy. The cathedral is set atop one of several volcanic peaks, Mont Anis, formed hundreds of thousands of years ago when the area was part of an inland sea and some of the photos show the very steep ascent and descent from the town up to the cathedral. On the day after we arrived a running event, Le Grand Trail du St Jacques, was on and we watched runners finishing as much as a 115 km run up the hill towards the cathedral – not for the faint hearted, my heart beat got up over 160bpm when we walked up!
The other religious attractions, the Chapelle Saint-Michel-d’Aiguilhe and the Statue Notre-Dame de France, are also both set on a “rocher”, the latter the Rocher Corneille, and we climbed up both of the rocks to get the views and take in the chapel and statue. The statue, it turns out, was made from over 200 canons taken from the Russians during the Crimean war and you can climb up the inside of it – there were too many people inside for my liking and I made a quick exit without getting to the top!
We made a couple of walks out to an outdoor store a couple of kms out of town to get some last minute gear and a couple of the pictures are from there.
We also made it to mass at the cathedral at 7am on Sunday morning and the pilgrim’s blessing after that – it was very good and the bishop made the people doing the trail very welcome , whether religious or not. After the mass and before the end of the blessing, the main door to the cathedral and the grate inside the cathedral is opened so pilgrims can go straight down the steps, on to the road and head off – we wished we’d brought our packs, we would have been off!
Overall, we’ve had a great time, found some nice restaurants and bars and rested enough to be ready for our walk. The weather forecast is a bit iffy – the Criterium du Dauphine rolled into town today for a stage through town tomorrow afternoon – last time our paths crossed a bike race it bucketed down so let’s hope it’s different this time!
Can’t wait to get walking😀
steelewalking 