Training again!

Russ and I will be heading to France this fall to walk the GR65 trail, which starts in Le Puy-en-Velay and ends in St. Jean Pied-de-Port (the starting point of the Camino Frances). The distance is approximately 740km, and we plan to take our time and enjoy the scenery, so have allowed ourselves about 6 weeks for the walk. Our accommodation will consist of either gites d'etape, which are dormitories specifically for walkers, chambre d'hotes, which are bed & breakfasts, or hotels, if we decide to treat ourselves! The owners of the gites often provide a communal dinner as well as breakfast the next morning, so we are looking forward to meeting other pilgrims and perhaps even communicating with our very rusty high school French! This walk is quite popular compared to the Via Francigena in Italy, so it will be nice to see other people on the trail, but we will have to reserve our accommodation at least one day ahead of time. In a way that will enable us to relax a bit more during our walks, as we will not have the pressure of finding a place to stay. 

Right now our training consists of several 10-15 km walks per week, and we will be increasing the distances during the summer, as well as carrying our fully loaded backpacks! 

Since we have both become more serious about photography recently, we will be taking our cameras, which means that to avoid carrying too much weight, something else will have to be left at home! We'll keep you posted on how that goes. 

Will post another update before we leave....au revoir!

Linda