Pilgrimage: Meeting Spain's Pilgrim Towns

By G McDougall

New travel writing at its best, Pilgrimage relives the pilgrim's journey with affection and bite, lovingly descriptions of pilgrim towns and villages, poetica written with a vibrant and passionate pen.
Commentators say Pilgrimage is “beautiful poetic writing", with “inspired metaphor, written “to a breathless walking rhythm”.
The judge of the Peter Cowan Short Story Prize said of one Pilgrimage story: it’s 'An epic evocation of place. Yes, this story proves that you can produce an epic in a mere 488 words! Like all good fiction, perhaps, this piece is ultimately an investigation into how time passes and works. Energetic, almost punch-drunk writing (I mean that as a complement!): "Let the dogs and big ideas fight over the bones behind the Calle mayor". Fabulous!
Towns of interest include Conques, Santiago de Compostella, St Jean-Pied-de-Port, Figaec and Le Puy.
Garry is a member of 'That Authors Collective' and DiVerse ekphrasis poets.

• Language: English
• Publisher: G McDougall
• Release date: Jan 16, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301863365

G McDougall

The Author was winner of the Art-In-Unusual-Places Grant (2022), a Feature Poet at the Sydney Writers Festival (2018), Balmain Institute founder and President (2007-14), and winner, Ros Spenser Short Story Prize with Patting The Dog (2017). He is author of over thirty books, including six novels, fourteen poetry, travel and short stories, and numerous photo books. Founder of Pamela Press, he is published in international magazines, with photos exhibited in eleven countries.The Author is the Camino de Santiago's most prolific author with ten eBooks and several paperbacks. He has extensive travel and teaching experience, and won Australian ecotourism, community project and literary prizes and grants. He co-created an Official NSW Bicentennial Project, the 250 km 'Great North Walk'. After many years managing Great Australian Walks, he refocused on photography, painting and storytelling, with seven novels.'Belonging' is a fictional-biography of a 'black doctor' in colonial Australia. 'Starts With C' is a murder mystery where we don't who is the murder, who has been murdered, and who's telling the story. The third novel is the acclaimed 'Knowing Simone' set in Victor Hugo's France. 'Blacksmith and Canon' is volume one of the series '1503'. Inheritance is the second volume, with volumes 3 and 4 due in 2025. In between, he wrote, Sea Voices, inspired by a WW2 event in the Pacific.Recent Awards include; Winner, Art-in-Usually-Places Grant, 2022, Wollongong City; Winner, Peter Cowan Short Story Prize, with 'Patting the Dog', Highly Commended, Peter Cowan Short Story Prize; Second, Peter Cowan Poetry Prize, and Feature Poet in the Sydney Writers festival. Included in numerous poetry and short story anthologies, Garry was Balmain Institute's president for seven years, a member of 'That Authors Collective' and 'Diverse' poetry group. He lives south of Sydney in the great and beautiful Illawarra.

Book preview

P i l g r i m a g e

Exploring the Ancient Towns of France

Book Three

Garry McDougall

Copyright 2014

Second Edition, 2018

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

What is Pilgrimage?

Map of The Ways to Santiago de Compostela

Introduction

Chapter 1 Stolen Conques

After Estiang, Averyon, France

Chapter 2 Tribute to Decazeville

On the Camino prior to Figaec, Lot, France.

Two versions.

Chapter 3 From Charles De Gaulle to Pont St Esprit

or 'Rite of Spring', Rhone Valley, France

Chapter 4 And Merriment Tonight

Pont de St Esprit, Languedoc, France

Chapter 5 Snippets: Walking from Espalion to Moissac

Chapter 6 Really Alarming

Approaching Cahor

Chapter 7 St Martin d'Ardeche Encounter

Paye Ardeche, France

Chapter 8 Well on the Way

Chapter 9 The Geography of Saints

Paye Ardeche, France

Chapter 10 The Making of St Martin

Paye Ardeche, France

Further Information

List of Photographs

Further web links and videos

'In the twenty-first Century, many parts of France remain to be discovered.'

Graham Robb, The Discovery of France

P i l g r i m a g e

1. A journey to a sacred place or shrine.

2. A long journey or search, especially one of exalted purpose or moral significance.

My definition: The journey into, the journey along, the journey through, and the journey to.

Pilgrim Ways to Santiago de Compostela

France, Spain and Portugal’s many Caminos de Santiago. Camino Frances is shown as a thick line.

Introduction to Pilgrimage Three

Exploring the Ancient and Pilgrim Towns of France

Here are travel tales focusing on town experiences of and in intriguing France - medieval Conques and industrial Decazeville in the French Aveyron, St Martin and Pont St Esprit in the Languedoc/Ardeche, and more. Some areon the Le Puy-en-Valey pilgrimage route, the others in and around Pont St Esprit. Together with Encounter at St Martin d'Ardeche, they are historical, cultural and recreational crossroads.

As usual, these stories are inspired and inspiring. They delight in wondrous words and their associations, the 'stories' sourced from real and intense experiences. Photographs and added web links give you room for your own experiences, now and in the future. Pilgrimage Three presents French pilgrimage towns with flair, scepticism, affection, absurdity and humour; in spirit of Gore Vidal’s

‘Style is knowing who you are, what you have to say, and not giving a damn.’

Pilgrimage is for all tourists, travellers, pilgrims, stay-at-Homer readers and pilgrims-to-be. Your tales can be read sipping a cold drink, lying on a beach, sitting in the train, or eating delicious tapas in a café by the Camino. Read your stories aloud or in silence, on a bus or in a plane, or pausing by a stream in Conques, Figeac or Moissac. Even the stay-at-homers (including myself sometimes), will relish these tales of frightening intensity for their rich, ripe ingredients, tales with flavours designed to last and last.

Travelers- don’t be slaves to the iconic Paris' Champs Elysees, Sydney's Opera Houses or the World’s tallest buildings, and the allure of the big cities of New York, Paris, London, Hong Kong or Sydney. You will miss all that ‘could be, in those little gems of incident, architecture and ornament