Les Abrets to Le Grand Lemps

On the morning of 20th September we had a relaxed start to our latest adventure; we had plenty of time to check our bags and to water plants etc. We walked to Gümligen to take the train to Bern and then to Geneva. This turned out to be delayed but luckily we had left ourselves plenty of time - just enough to post a birthday card to Matteo. We then boarded the 14.59 to Chambery. This was a pleasant old fashion train which gave us a feel of doing something a little different and of being on holiday. This train, too, was held up by something that had hit the underneath but they did not discovered what. Again, we had plenty of time to change trains -luckily. The next train took us to Les Abrets where Alan, our host, picked us up. We drove out to his gîte where his wife Florentine welcomed us with the offer of a cool drink. We found ourselves in a paradise! The gardens, the house, the rooms were all so well taken care of and beautiful. We had a lovely en-suite room with sheets and towels. We met Hubert from Austria and three ladies from near Yenne. The meal that we shared together was very tasty and it was all a lovely start to our walk. Alain and Florentine aid a school in Madagascar, which is the country of origin of Florentine. They are lovely people and we so enjoy our short stay with them

The next day, after a lovely breakfast, we said our goodbye’s and started on our 1st day of walking. We began by climbing and met with the girls at the top and also Mathieu from Lausanne, a young man who had slept outside - he is walking to Santiago where he hopes to arrive for Christmas Mass. In Valencogne we visited our first church of this ‘etape’. There was an ‘épicerie’ but it did not have much other than bread and a few left overs.( we took a tin of sardines and a baguette which turned out to be very tasty ). The owner explained that he had looked for a long time to find someone to help him out and finding no-one, was having to close. It was to be the only small shop that we were to see on our walks apart from the towns. The small villages have no shops or post office and almost no public transport. If there are shops, they close for at least 2 hours at lunch time and are not open at all on Mondays but some do open for a couple of hours on Sundays.
The Way was pleasant enough being mostly stony through woods. We did lose our way and met three Swiss Germans who had done the same; they quickly disappeared not to be seen again and we found our way back on the correct path. We arrived in Le Pin (at lunch time, so the shop there was not open).

From then on we climbed after which we had a steep decent. There was a sign saying that we had 1,5 km to go but after getting overjoyed, came to a choice of ways one 3,2km or 2.2km but steep and slippery. We chose the latter but it was tough. We arrived at our lodgings which were very nice, but we did eat late. We were joined by the French ladies and Mathieu.