When Kathryn and I bought our place in Montpellier, we told ourselves we were going to use it as a base for seeing more of France and neighboring countries.
For the first two years, we didn’t do a great job at traveling. We used the excuse that we were improving the apartment, which was valid but unsatisfying. Last year, we did a much better job with our nine-day rail trip to Paris, Lausanne, and Prague.
This week, I rented a car for two days, and we drove about four hours to Rocamadour.
The trip didn’t start off well. We walked to the train station down the street, and like a Seinfeld episode, the agency from which we’d reserved didn’t have any cars.
Honestly, I would have thrown in the towel right then if we hadn’t had a non-refundable hotel stay already booked in Rocamadour. Kathryn was more insistent, and a clerk at another rental car company in the train station suggested we walk down the street to a third agency with an office just outside the station.
The third agency was Europcar, with whom I’ve had good experiences in the past, but they’re also often the most expensive. They did indeed have cars, and with a modest discount off their usual high rate, we drove off in a relatively new, objectively tiny MG hybrid.
I hadn’t driven in France for years, so naturally it started raining. The mountain roads were slick, and the French seem to reserve guardrails for only the most extreme cases. Even though Rocamadour is less than 300 km from Montpellier, I stopped twice to rest and relax my white knuckles.
When we finally arrived in Rocamadour, it was still too early to check into our hotel. We knew that was likely going to be the case, but our initial plan of doing some sightseeing and then checking in was partially foiled by rain.
The good news was that between the weather and being off-season, we could park pretty much anywhere. So we had a coffee at one of the few open places.
After moving the car even closer, we enjoyed a careful stroll along the steep, slippery Way of the Cross down to the Sanctuary of Our Lady. There we visited the chapel of the Black Madonna, prayed for a bit, and then followed the Way of the Cross back to the car — in the correct direction this time, so that Jesus being laid in the tomb was the end rather than the beginning.
We drove back to the hotel, perhaps 2 km away, where it was time to check in. We were warmly welcomed and shown to our room, which was much nicer than I expected considering how little we paid. The blessings of traveling off-season, I suppose. The host made us dinner reservations, and we got some rest for a couple hours. When we woke up, the sun was about to set, but more importantly, the rain had stopped.
The restaurant for dinner was the same place we had coffee in the afternoon — there really wasn’t much open. It was attached to a hotel, so with all their hotel guests there for dinner, the reservation was a good idea.
Dinner was delightful. I had a steak with a red wine reduction. While Kathryn went with something sweet for dessert, I went with the local Rocamadour cheese, warmed slightly and served with a small walnut salad.
After a good night’s sleep and a nice breakfast, we went back into town, walked down the Way of the Cross again, and then make a long loop back to the car, walking along the cliffs into which Rocamadour is built.
Returning to the car, we started our way back to Montpellier. We were getting hungry as we approached Decazeville, and we ended up stopping in the same roadside McDonald’s where we’d stopped a day earlier.
I had passed through Decazeville on my Camino pilgrimage in 2022, and I saw a number of direction signs for Conques as we approached. Conques had made quite an impression on me in 2022, and while eating lunch, I pulled out my phone and realized we were about a half hour away by car. Kathryn was agreeable, so after lunch, we pointed the car at Conques.
I was delighted to be in Conques again, but with no pilgrims in sight, the experience was totally different. It felt smaller with fewer people around, which didn’t make any sense to me. Maybe I felt like I didn’t earn it this time, arriving by car rather than on foot.
I pointed to the mountains to the east and west of Conques where I had arrived and departed in 2022 and to the pilgrim trail out of town. It was the first time I’d been able to give Kathryn a taste of what I felt on the Camino.
While having a coffee before leaving Conques, Kathryn found a small town with a waterfall that would only be a few minutes out of our way on the drive back to Montpellier. So that was our next stop. Not even a coffee there. We parked, walked to the waterfall, took pictures, and left. It was beautiful, though.
Approaching Montpellier, I kept my eyes open for a gas station on our route. That’s a mistake I won’t make again. After fighting rush hour traffic to return the rental car to the train station, I then had to fight it again to find a gas station. Next time, I’ll put a known gas station in Montpellier into Google Maps as a stop instead of trying to find one along the way. This ain’t Phoenix.
