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 Puy isn’t just the jumping-off point for the Food Lover’s tour, of course. It has a charming old city centre and an impressive cathedral, which clings to the side of Corneille Rock and comprises a rambling cluster of buildings built mostly between the fifth and 15th centuries.
The city is also known for both its eponymous lentils and Verveine du Velay, a local botanical liqueur made of 32 plants, herbs and spices that tastes like a herbal bath bomb mixed with rocket fuel. Stick with the lentils. Le Puy has a charming old city centre and an impressive cathedral.
Credit: iStock Medieval Conques, where I head the next day, is a charmingly cobblestoned village with a permanent population of just 89 – vastly different to the 3000 or more who lived there in the 11th century, when the abbey church of St Foy came into possession of the bones of a young Christian martyr by way of “furtive relocation” – known to us today as stealing. The Treasury of St Foy, tucked away in the cloisters next to the church, is fascinatingly and unexpectedly full of priceless reliquaries, including a gold and gem-encrusted statue said to contain part of the saint’s skull. On the trail into Conques.
It’s here that I finally catch up with the group and its leader, the irrepressible Mary Moody. In the coming days there will be hiking along sections of the Camino through wheat fields, forests and vineyards fecund with fruit; there will be beautiful villages and towns stuffed like sausages with history and religion; there will be dinners and lunches to bring tears to the eyes of even the greediest gourmand; and there will be much continuing mirth at the idea of “furtive relocation”. But, let’s be honest, the icing on the cake is Mary Moody.
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