Hit the Road Jacques
A Skeptical Pilgrimage across France
Welcome!
This site is under construction. To find your way around, go to Site Contents in the right margin and click on the section you'd like to visit: Paris, Burgundy or Le Puy-to-the-Pyrenees. Soon all of the text entries, addresses, photos and audio files will be integrated into the easy-t0-read format you'll find in the growing Paris and Burgundy sections of the site.
Background
Why would anyone, let alone a skeptic, decide to drop everything, put on boots, pack and slicker, and start walking across France, following the ancient Gallic and Roman roads that morphed into the celebrated medieval pilgrimage route known as The Way of Saint James?
Explore this website and you might find out why we set out on this crazy adventure. According to father Jean-Regis Armel, one of five Brothers at the abbey in Conques, there is only one thing that all pilgrims have in common: they feel a calling, the need, an irresistible urge to set out and walk. They often don't know why. Sometimes they find answers while walking, or years after they've returned. Sometimes they never understand what drove them.
Visit the Paris page of this site for more about Saint James and the beginning of our pilgrimage, which really began in Paris many years ago.
After wrestling Fate, family and friends to get organized, in spring 2006 we walked across much of Burgundy, starting at Mary Magdalene's basilica in Vezelay, crossing the wild, wooly Morvan, the vineyards of the Cote d'Or, Cote Chalonnaise and Maconnais, and winding up in Macon.
David's Boot, St-James' scallop, copyright Alison HarrisIn the spirit of our quiet, reflective walk, we decided not to post material while on the road. That's why content from Burgundy continues to appear in these pages as we work to transfer material from our notesbooks and memory cards. Once we've finished Burgundy we'll work on the 800-kilometer (500-mile) section we crossed in the Midi of France to the Spainish side of the Pyrenees.
Dip in and out, come back often: the site will keep changing. And don't forget to visit our other websites. For our critically acclaimed illustrated collection of travel essays, "Paris, Paris: Journey into the City of Light" go to www.parisparisthebook.com . Visit Alison's photography website at www.alisonharris.com. Click on our names below to read brief biographical sketches of each of us.
All the best, Alison and David
David and hi-tech IT, copyright Alison Harris
www.parispilgrim.com