Arguing the route

You could say we’ve been planning this for two years though it has, naturally, taken looming departure dates to make us concentrate. Our air of harmony and unity has been rattled in the wind of panic.

First, the delay in deciding which route exactly to take us to Le Puy-en-Velay, start of the recognised Camino trail. Which of the many Gothic cathedrals in France would David judge worthy of study? His choice has added around 1000 miles of meander – but what’s a thousand footsore miles in a marriage…?

We’ll head west from London to Winchester and Southampton, then curve back east to Portsmouth and the ferry to Caen. A side-trip to Bayeux before heading east again through Normandy, Picardy and south into the Champagne region. Then over to Vézelay, where another traditional route starts, and straight south through the Massif Central.

With a route in place, we move to the detail – stringing together as many grandes and petites randonnée paths as we can. I squinted and marked them up on our decaying road atlas of France; and thanks to a day rustling very large-scale maps of the Royal Geographic Society in Kensington Gore managed to convert the distances of a 1:200,000 scale to a more accurate 1:25,000. And thus concluded that Woburn Place, London to Santiago de Compostela, Spain is 2,500 miles as the road wanders. Give or take a Cathedral or two.