Walking 50 miles to Lourdes

Walk 2

2006-11-06T12:46:00.000Z

Walk 2 official song

(to be sung to the tune of 'It's a long way to Tipperary')

It's a long way from the Prairie,
It's a long way to Pau
It's a long way, when you're walking
With a blister on your toe

Goodbye Nousty village
Farewell Soumoulou
It's a long long way to the toilet
When you need a p**

CLM

Photographs

2006-11-02T17:01:00.000Z

We have uploaded a selection of the photographs of the walk on the HCPT website - have a look at www.hcpt.org.uk/galleries/walk2/

If you have any walk stories you want to add to the blog, let us know at walk2006@hcpt.org.uk.

If you have any photographs to add to the gallery, please email them to us.

Time to go home

2006-11-01T10:24:00.000Z

The walkers are on their way home now, Toulouse to Birmingham or Pau to Stansted.
Bishop John celebrated mass in the Hosanna House chapel before we left.
We'll all be home soon.

It's all finished!

2006-10-31T21:20:00.000Z

All the walkers have completed their objective and arrived safely back at Hosanna House.
After finishing the main part of the walk we had a chance to stop at Hosanna House for a wash and refresh before the final mile from the top of town down to the Grotto. There we were met by Fr Liam Griffin, English language chaplain at Lourdes who led a prayer of thanksgiving for what all the walkers (both Walk1 at Easter and Walk2) had achieved, and for all that HCPT brings to Lourdes. After that we had a Group photo in front of the Grotto, and spent a while waving at the Lourdes webcam - glad to hear lots of people saw us!!!
The Hosanna House bus then took us all back to the House where Jean Bernard had prepared a celebratory meal for us and after that.... lots of singing, laughter but not much dancing for some reason.
Home tomorrow, time for a well earned rest (before going back to work on Thursday!)

They're off again...

2006-10-31T10:11:00.000Z

At 7.30 this morning, the walkers set off for day 2, the return leg to Pontaq.

Everyone at breakfast was in high spirits and Dr Cath held a surgery in the hotel foyer to tend to blisters and other ailments!

The weather today is noticeably cooler and less sunny, in fact by 10 am it had started raining, which is a welcome change for those who relied on aftersun for a comfortable night...

Despite any intentions to explore Pau, on arrival at the hotel last night fatigue won and we strayed no further than the nearest restaurant with a table big enough to fit us all in.

Everyone is now returning to Soumoulou for lunch via Bizanos, Idron, Lee, Ousse and Nousty, avoiding the yappy dogs.

Half way there...

2006-10-30T17:22:00.000Z

We have all arrived at the Ibis (pr. abyss?) in great spirits - and some poorly feet! All these walkers have fought personal battles to get this far whether it's blisters, sunburn, fatigue or the seemingly huge number of angry dogs on the way!
Dinner soon in the local pizzeria, then bed before retracing our steps back to Pontacq tomorrow.
Oh, did you hear the one about the pilgrimage organiser who got lost in Pau...?

The final stretch for today...stepping out to Pau

2006-10-30T13:59:00.000Z

After lunch at Soumoulou we carry on North East along the D213 all the way to Pau.

Along the route we will go through Nousty, Artiguelotan, Ousse, Lee, Idron and on into Pau - birthplace of Henri IV (1589-1610) .

From www.pyreneesguide.com
"From humble beginnings as a crossing on the Gave de Pau for flocks en route to and from the mountains, Pau became the capital of the ancient viscountcy of Béarn in 1464, and of the French part of the kingdom of Navarre in 1512. In 1567 its sovereign, Henri d'Albret, married the sister of the king of France, Marguerite d'Angoulême, friend and protector of artists and intellectuals and herself the author of a celebrated Boccaccio-like tale (the Heptameron), who transformed the town into a centre of the arts and nonconformist thinking.
Their daughter was Jeanne d'Albret, an ardent Protestant, whose zeal offended her own subjects as well as attracting the wrath of the Catholic king of France, Charles X, thus embroiling Béarn in the Wars of Religion – whose resolution, albeit only temporary, had to await the accession to the French throne of her own son, Henri IV, in 1589. An adroit politician, he renounced his faith to facilitate this transition, quipping that "Paris is worth a Mass" and then appeasing the regional sensibilities of his Bearnais subjects by announcing that he was giving France to Bearn rather than Bearn to France. He did not incorporate Béarn into the French state; that was left to his son and successor, Louis XIII, in 1620. As Pau's most famous son, Henri acquired a suitably colourful reputation. He was baptized in traditional Béarnais style with the local Juraçon wine, and his infant lips were rubbed with garlic. In his adult life he was known as the vert-galant for his prowess as a lover. He also gave France one of its more famous recipes, poule au pot – chicken stuffed and boiled with vegetables: he is reputed to have said that he did not want anyone in his realm to be so poor as not to be able to afford a poule in the pot once a week.
"The least-expected thing about Pau is its English connection, which dates from the arrival of Wellington and his troops after the defeat of Marshal Soult at Orthez in 1814. Seduced by its climate and persuaded of its curative powers by the Scottish doctor Alexander Taylor, the English flocked to Pau throughout the nineteenth century, bringing along their peculiar cultural obsessions – fox-hunting, horse-racing, polo, croquet, cricket, golf (the first eighteen-hole course in continental Europe in 1860 and the first in the world to admit women), tearooms and parks. When the rail line arrived here in 1866, the French came, too: writers and artists like Victor Hugo, Stendhal and Lamartine, as well as the socialites. The first French rugby club opened here in 1902, after which the sport spread throughout the southwest. During the 1950s, natural gas was discovered at nearby Lacq, bringing new jobs and subsidiary industries, as well as massive production of sulphur-dioxide-based pollution, now reduced by filtration but still substantial. In addition, there is a well-respected university, founded in 1972, whose eight thousand or so students give the town a youthful buzz.
Pau lies within easy reach of numerous small, picturesque villages in northwest Bearn, as well as the GR65 footpath that runs some 60km down to the Spanish border."

http://tinyurl.com/y5mlvg - map of second part of day , and first part of day 2.

Chateau de Pau, birthplace of Henri IV is only a few minutes walk from the hotel where we will be staying.
http://tinyurl.com/y99e5q - location of Hotel

It's lunchtime!

2006-10-30T11:00:00.000Z

We are half way there so it is time to stop for lunch. It is very hot today and the sunshine is strong.
Not surprisingly as we are near Toulouse the new Airbus A380 has been flying overhead all morning.
Now it's time for suncream, sandwiches and foot rubs all round!
Phil, somewhere in Soumoulou.

We will be stopping for lunch at Soumoulou...

2006-10-30T10:30:00.000Z

Nested at the edge of Ousse between the castle, the Church and the mill, thus Soumoulou by the chroniclers of the medieval time is described to us. Nothing then distinguishes it from its congeneric the valley if it is not its size, smallest of them; hardly ten fires in the great role of Gaston Fébus in 1385 of which all the same eights paid the tax. From this time, there remain almost nothing: some vestiges of the castle destroyed with the revolution. The Church it, was destroyed in 1885 when the news was built. The cemetery was transformed into park in 1971. Only the mill become remains inn then discotheque in second half of the XXème century.

The fate of Soumoulou is transformed into 1725 when the intendant of Etigny puts in building site the royal road from Bayonne in Perpignan, the current R.N.117. Indeed, the Coast of Bistor, frightening for the attachments after the false dish from Pau (it is not said that Soumoulou would like to say the small top?) oblige to create with the foot of this coast a relay of station in a district of Soumoulou called then tired border of Espoey because it sheltered barns where the farmers of this village locked up the night their animals to withdraw them from the guards princes of Béarn. Around this relay of Station create for themselves trade gradually and inns and one attends a migrtion of the population of the village to the top of Soumoulou. In 1793, the first gendarmerie squad is created in the ruins of the old castle.

Second notorious event for the fate of Soumoulou: a riot at the market of Tarbes in 1855 during which the inhabitants of the area were molestés by the constabulary and decided to boycott the markets bigourdans. The maitre of station, Mr Davantes, mayor of the commune and the land big landowner benefits from the occasion to create the market of Soumoulou by making gift with the commune of the ground where the Place of the Market is today.

This market strongly took root to become, in alternation with that of Morlaàs, the largest market with calves of the Western South at one time when the calf and the chicken of Soumoulou held the top of the paving stone on the Parisian stalls. In same time, the cattle fair (horses, mules, oxen) became, it also, one of most important of Béarn. In parallel, a whole series of services were set up in this new Soumoulou where the inns with good and fine kitchen compete between them, attracting the barge outwards even periods of fairs and markets.

This brings us to the last quarter of the XXème century; at this time, a new agricultural orientation entraine a decline of the traditional markets and threat the economy soumouloise dependent on the only customers of passage. Two opportunities emerge then whose the municipality could profit. Once again, different comes at named the right moment: they are this time some antique dealers and second-hand dealers the periphery paloise, prohibited stay at the market of Pau by the antique dealers in place, who come to ask to create a market, one Sunday per month, occasion seized by the town council which will then lead to the markets and fairs with the secondhand trade current, high place of China in Béarn. The second opportunity at the instigation of a city council man in the Eighties: the creation of the market to the vehicles of occasion which comes to compensate the cattle market and remains the great Sunday demonstration today. All this life allowed and makes it possible our village to enter this century with all the assets of large and to fall under the harmonious development of the valley of Ousse of which there remains incontestably the federator element for the largest good of its inhabitants.
From www.soumoulou.fr/

And we're off....

2006-10-30T08:54:00.000Z

The walkers set off this morning at 8AM after a group photo in the Hosanna House chapel...

2006-10-29T13:21:00.000Z

The final torchlight procession of 2006, apologies for the bad quality camera phone image!

2006-10-29T13:11:00.000Z

We were in luck - not only did we catch the last tochlight procession of the season, but what a procession!
It was led by the pilgrimage of nation guardian, from Provence and included hundreds of people in traditional provencal costumes, led by no less than 54 men on white horses carrying flaming torches!!! The music was led by a pipe and drum band - it was all very special.
EDIT: Photographs of this pilgrimage on the Lourdes website
Today (Sunday) the first group of walkers sharedmass together in the Hosanna House chapel (the choice of hymns was inspired - Guide me o thou great redeemer, Walk with me oh my Lord...) and afterwards went to have a look round the Bartres villa (see www.hcpt.org.uk/pages/pilgrimages/villa1.asp) - it has had some new bathrooms and a stairlift added and really does look great!
Later on the second group will join us, arriving at Pau from Stansted, and later tonight the final group from the Birmingham - Toulouse flight. Tomorrow we start the walk from Pontacq and the forecast suggests it will be as hot as today (72F!) - let's hope the support cars have plenty of cold bottled water!

Phil, Sunday 14:15

And they're off...!

2006-10-28T13:46:00.000+01:00

And they're off...!
The first group of fifteen walkers have arrived in Lourdes. Flight BE1865 from Birmingham to Toulouse was also carrying many people heading to Toulouse to watch the London Irish game tomorrow! The flight was operated on the new Embraer 195 plane which FlyBe have just purchased.
The weather in Toulouse is hot and sunny, 18C, and the forecast is for it to be even warmer for the walk - so much for the new raincoat!
The rest of the walkers will be flying out tomorrow. For the advance party there is the chance of a visit to the Grotto, possibly the last Torchlight procession of the season (unless they ended last weekend) and a chance to relax before the big day on Monday.

We'll be starting in Pontacq

2006-10-26T10:14:00.000+01:00

Our walk starts in Pontacq, whose Mayor describes the town as:

"More than a thousand years old, Pontacq, like all the villages, built with the wire of the history, the chance, the need, the will of the men and the women who followed one another there. But it was also built starting from a particular situation which continues today still to constitute its originality.

"Indeed after centuries on the border of France and of Béarn (situation which did not confer only advantages in the event of conflicts), then between two provinces: Bigorre and Béarn, Pontacq is today at the border between two departments and two areas.

"Its originality is not due only to that, but to the fact that its urban unit, its basin of life consisted two Lamarque-Pontacq communes and Pontacq (example before the letter of communities of communes) is divided by the border between the Hautes-Pyrénées and the Midi-Pyrenees Area and the Pyrénées-Atlantiques and the Aquitanian Area.

"The geographical border is thus purely administrative and does not deteriorate the remarkable situation Pontacq and Lamarque, the fringe of Piedmont Pyrénéen and the hollow of the important Pau-Tarbes-Door triangle."

We start just south of the village of Pontacq and will walk through the village then north along the D65 through Barzun and Livron, then the D218 to Hours.

http://tinyurl.com/y73obz - map of first part of route

Phil Burns
Thursday 26 Oct 2006

2006-10-26T10:10:00.000+01:00

WALK 2 TEAM
Anthony Hodgetts, Catherine McGoohan, Michael McGoohan, Richard McDowell, Lee Tattum, Rosemary Doran, Sharon Congreve, Madeleine Kenny, Thomas Mullett, Mary Wright, Philip Burns, John Burns, Chris Gardner, David Hart, Rachel O'Sullivan, Catherine Bibey, Gerard Walsh, Helen Williams, Mary O'Gorman, Isobel Walsh, David Birch, Craig Fullard, Bernard Gajewski, Eva Brothers, John Hill, Chris O'Brien, Angela O'Keefe, Sean O'Flaherty, Francis Revill, John Rawsthorne, Denis McCarthy, Bernadette Mills, Ann Simonsen, Diedre Curtis, Alison O'Sullivan, Bridget Hanlon, David Hanlon, Dr Elizabeth Foster

Starting the preparations

2006-10-11T01:18:00.000+01:00

I've bought a new pair of walking shoes, and a weatherproof coat (first time in over twenty years I have owned a coat with a hood!), and done one eight mile practice walk - but STILL people tell me I'm not sufficiently prepared. What else do I need to do?
I'm really looking forward to the walk, but not the preparations!