The Camino de Santiago, aka Chemin de Saint-Jacques, aka the Way of St James, was one of the most important Christian pilgrimages during the late Middle Ages. No matter where pilgrims started from, all roads led to Galicia in north-western Spain and the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela, where it is said the remains of the apostle James are buried. One popular starting point was (and still is) the cathedral in the pretty provincial city of Le Puy-en-Velay in the Haute-Loire department of south-central France.
It seems appropriate, then, to start UTracks’ Food Lover’s French Way of St James 11-day tour inside the head of the Virgin Mary. Made of cast-iron taken from more than 200 Russian cannons captured during the Crimean War, this hollow, 23-metre statue of Mary has dominated Le Puy-en-Velay from Corneille Rock – the town’s highest point – since 1860. For just €4 you, too, can climb the spiral stairs and, thanks to the transparent plastic bubble in the Virgin’s bonce, take in spectacular 360-degree views of the city.
Le Puy-en-Velay and its statue of Mary on Corneille Rock. Credit: iStock I am supposed to be meeting up with a Mary but not this one. Due to uncontrollable circumstances, I’m a little late to join the Mary Moody-led tour (it left two days ago) and will catch up with it in the village of Conques, 170 kilometres away to the south-west.
Which is how, left to my own devices in Le Puy, I find myself up a ladder in la tête de la Vierge Marie . Le P.