Hiking Le Puy to Conques – Le Puy Route in Comfort 2024

A.

12-night, Guest house-led trip:

Price per person with 2 persons sharing double room:
£1165.00 Pounds Sterling or €1385.00 Euros

B.

12-night, Hotel-led trip:

Price per person with 2 persons sharing double room:
£1325.00 Pounds Sterling or €1575.00 Euros

What’s Included

• 12 nights accommodation and tourist taxes
• 12 breakfasts and 9 evening meals.
• Luggage transfers¹ and two people transfers.
• Themed dossier, Hiking Insight Notes and 1: 50,000 maps. The route is very well way-marked.
• 7/7 telephone help-line service with native-English speakers from 8am to 8pm.

• Extra nights: On Request
¹ You are entitled to take up to one piece of luggage per person weighing up to 13 kgs. Supplements are payable for extra or overweight luggage.
Note: we are able to arrange for your excess luggage to be securely stored for the duration of your tour and delivered to the final hotel before your departure. Please ask us for further details of this service if it is of interest to you.


• The option exists to combine days 4 & 5, thus forming an 11-night tour – please ask us for our advice. A short morning transfer option can also reduce the combined day’s length.

• Where we are unable to accommodate you in the desired hotel or guest house on a particular night, you will be placed in the equivalent guest house or hotel at that location. The price for that night will then be either reduced or increased on your final bill. Whereas hotels tend to have their own restaurants, guest houses may or may not offer an evening meal. 

• The finest section of France’s Classic Pilgrimage trail.
• Hike across five historic regions and through Auverge, Languedoc-Roussillon and Midi-Pyrenees.
• Choose from two high-level accommodation-led formats to suit you.
• Fine start – Le Puy en Velay and its World Heritage sites.
• Big Finish: the ‘Unesco’ medieval cité of Conques.

• 12-night, self-guided, inn-to-inn walking tour through rural France.
• moderate challenge, averaging 12 miles a day over a total of 134 miles/215 kms. Options to shorten or lengthen days to suit your agenda.
• Start any day, early-April to mid-October.
• Tour starts in Le Puy-en-Velay and finishes in Conques.
• Best access is from from Lyon: see “How to get to Le Puy” below.
• Carefully-selected and fine accommodation averaging ‘superior 2-star standard’ hotels, chambres d’hotes and auberges.
• Optional return transfer to Aumont-Aubrac or Le Puy at tour’s end – please ask us for details.
• Luggage transfers throughout.

• 12 nights accommodation
• 12 breakfasts and 9 evening meals.
• Luggage transfers¹ and transport integral to the programme.
• Themed dossier, Hiking Insight Notes and 1: 50,000 maps. The Way is very well way marked and we consider this scale map as entirely adequate for this particular trail.
• 7/7 Emergency telephone help-line service with native-English speakers from 8am to 8pm.

Notes:
¹ You are entitled to take up to one piece of luggage per person weighing up to 13 kgs. Supplements are payable for extra or overweight luggage.
Note: We are able to arrange for your excess luggage to be securely stored for the duration of your tour and delivered to the final hotel before your departure. Please ask us for further details of this service if it is of interest to you.

Not included:
Remaining meals and all drinks and extras;
personal expenses;
1: 25,000 scale maps: nine of these would be required to cover the tour, which we are happy to supply at a supplement;
entrances into any optional cultural visits and venues;
hiking, personal and travel insurances;
travel to Le Puy and from Conques.

Arrival:

These details are non-contractual and subject to change.
Please see:
https://www.sncf.com/en
or
the TER Site here (Regional railways).
or
https://www.rome2rio.com/

• Nearest airport or SNCF station is Lyon [3 hrs on TGV/High Speed Railway from Paris or Lille] with onward train journey to Le Puy via St Etienne (2 hrs 20 mins by Regional Railway/TER.).
• Next-best access is via Nimes or Montpellier airports, with onward TGV to Lyon – 30 and 60 minute journeys, respectively.
• Alternative option is via Clermont-Ferrand gare SNCF or airport, with onward TER regional train to Le Puy via St Etienne.
• By Car: leave your car in the central Le Puy car park – ask us for details.

Departure:

• We can get you transferred back to Aumont-Aubrac, Le Puy-en-Velay or onto Figeac for easy onward travel. A taxi from Conques to Rodez airport may also be an option. Please reserve at time of booking. Please ask us for details.
• Aumont-Aubrac lies on the regional railway line that runs north-south connecting Clermont-Ferrand to Beziers. Onward transport leaves here from around 11am and takes approx. 2 hours to go north to Clermont-Ferrand or 3½ south to Beziers.

We have literally combed the trail to find the best accommodation that the Le Puy to Conques Way has to offer so that you enjoy the over-night stay as much as the hiking. We are thus delighted to bring you two options from which you can choose according to your own personal tastes:

• Hiking Le Puy to Conques [Guest house-led]

Sets out with the express aim of placing our customers in seven fine guest houses along the trail, complemented by other comfortable accommodations:

• Seven nights in charming chambres d’hotes,
• Two nights in 3-star hotels,
• One 2-star hotel,
• One welcoming countryside auberge, and
• a recently-refurbished walker’s inn with all mod-cons.

Bedrooms are all, of course, en suite and comfort levels are homely. The objective is to allow you to meet interesting travellers along The Way, who value the same comforts as you, and spend time with hosts who know the area and its history and enjoy sharing it with their guests.

The human factor and the personal touch is thus writ large in this option. Your hosts are accustomed to welcoming Anglophones into their homes although, as with anything in life, your extra effort will be handsomely rewarded and so practicing some French [however rudimentary] is highly recommended.

The homes are all located on the trail itself. Some of your hosts do not provide an evening meal, simply because the village in question offers a multitude of local options to suit most tastes less than 300 metres away.

Where we are unable to accommodate you in the desired chambres d’hotes on a particular night (i.e., it is already fully booked), you will be placed in the equivalent hotel. The price for that particular night will be adjusted upwards and be itemised on your bill. Whereas hotels tend to have their own restaurants, guest houses may or may not offer an evening meal.

• Hiking Le Puy to Conques [Hotel-led]

Allows you to experience the trail by day whilst focusing the evenings on you, your family and close companions. You set the social agenda in the welcoming environment of your hotel bar, restaurant or room. All hotels are on the trail.

Our hotel-led, French Camino experience brings you:

• six 3-star hotels,
• four 2-star hotels,
• one welcoming countryside auberge, and
• a recently-refurbished gites d’etape with all mod-cons.

This is the most popular stretch of France’s Le Puy Route and so early booking is advised. Nevertheless, availability is like a moving escalator and things can change from day to day. Our commitment is to bring you your preferred accommodation option, Hiking Le Puy to Conques [Guest house-led] or Hiking Le Puy to Conques [Hotel-led], in its purest form. However, we cannot guarantee that corresponding accommodation will always be available at each stage and so this cannot be a precondition of your booking. Where we are unable to accommodate you in the desired hotel stay on a particular night, you will be placed in the equivalent guest house. The price for that particular night will be reduced.

• Warm summers; mild and sunny spring & autumn
• Enjoy sub-alpine flora and volcanic plateau to schist valley topography.
• Cross three regions: Auverge, Languedoc-Roussilon and Midi-Pyrenees.