Wednesday 8th October 2008 – Le-Puy-en-Velay, France

The major feature of today was rain. It started last evening at about 19:00 and continued all night, often heavy and with very few breaks. It was raining when we left La Bastide Puylaurent and it continued for the whole of our journey. We were continuing across the Massif Central and we hardly dropped lower than 800m reaching over 1,400m at one point. The scenery was pretty but it was rather spoiled by the rain and we felt no desire to stop and explore.
We were heading for Le-Puy-en-Velay and had found a camperstop in our 2007 edition of Camperstop Europe. I had entered the GPS coordinates into the sat nav and it showed the location near the centre of the town. However the GPS coordinates in the book have been unreliable, in fact they issued an addendum to correct many of those in France but this was not one of them. Following the coordinates, we arrived at a car park in the centre of the town with no indication of a camperstop nor was it near a campsite as the text suggested. We stopped and used the address rather than the GPS coordinates and this took us to the correct place. The camperstop was however heaving with very large RV motorhomes associated, we think, with the very large roadworks on the ring road. We decided to go to the Camping Le-Puy-en-Velay site next door. Unfortunately, the site was close not open until 13:00 so, with 45 minutes to wait, we camped in their drive and had an early lunch. Soon after 13:00 we were let in and were soon walking into the town ..... in the rain!
Le-Puy-en-Velay is in an intriguing area of the Massif Central as it is a large volcanic area with many thermal springs and large volcanic rock outcrops. Two such outcrops dominate the town, one Rocher Corneille standing 130m above the town is topped by a massive statue of the Virgin and Child. It was made from 213 guns captured at Sebastopol and is, rather surprisingly, painted red. The other volcanic pinnacle, Rocher d'Aiguilhe 82m above the town, was once the home to a Roman temple, probably to Mercury, but in the 10th century a church was built to St. Michael and this was extended in the 12th century. We walked up the 265 steps to the chapel and we were incredibly lucky – it wasn't raining. We admired the views of the city in the dry before going into the chapel. Needless to say, it was raining when we emerged again and walked down the 265 steps to the exhibition in a house at the bottom of the hill.
We walked on to the cathedral, a few hundred metres away and were impressed with the statue of a black Mary and Jesus, a replica of the original that was destroyed during the French Revolution. There is a connection here to our visit to Spain in January as the cathedral is a starting point for French pilgrims on their way to Santiago (or Saint Jacques, as the French call it) de Compostela. We continued our walk though the narrow alleys of the old town and around the Rocher Corneille hill but decided not to climb it given that the rain was now heavier.
As I write this at 20:30 it is still raining – over 24 hours with hardly a break and Jane has been told by the campsite staff that rain is forecast for tomorrow.
Photos: The view of Rocher d'Aiguilhe from the campsite; The statue of the Virgin and Child on Rocher Corneille; An example of fitting a house into the available space – a very thin dwelling in the Le-Puy-en-Velay old town; A close-up view of Saint Michael's church on Rocher d'Aiguilhe.