Slow Journeys by Gillian Souter

Author:Gillian Souter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: SPO050000, TRV000000
ISBN: 9781741768121
Publisher: Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd
Published: 2009-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

10. Seeking shelter

‘Thou art the thing itself; unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor, bare, forked animal as thou art.’ Perceptive old Shakespeare knew that a sunny day in the Forest of Arden is one thing, but a night on King Lear’s heath, exposed to the elements and without the comforts of civilisation, is quite another. The difference between a day-walk and an extended walking excursion is that in the latter you must find somewhere to lay your head at night. You will, most likely, need extra sleep on a long walk—nine hours a night or more—and how well you sleep will determine your fitness for walking the next day, so your choice of shelter is an important one.

Robert Louis Stevenson was determined to carry gear for camping on his Cévennes excursion, ‘for there is nothing more harassing to an easy mind than the necessity of reaching shelter by dusk, and the hospitality of a village inn is not always to be reckoned sure by those who trudge on foot’. Sleeping out was, however, his option of last resort (travel writer Bruce Chatwin always considered Stevenson a fraud). When Ralph Waldo Emerson paid a visit to Yosemite in 1871, naturalist John Muir was bitterly disappointed that he could not convince the sage to camp out with him overnight. Emerson, at the age of 68, felt he had earned a decent bed.

Finding a decent bed, or any bed at all, can be tricky along some routes. In the era before the internet it was even more difficult. Luckily, hosts with beds on offer have always been keen to fill them. Before the Cinque Terre path drew crowds, we dropped down from the path to the fishing village of Vernazza and were grabbed by a tiny old woman garbed in black who dragged us to her guestroom above a boatshed hung with sciacchetrá grapes. These days she probably has her own website. Before you start to hunt, find out the local words for small inns or spare rooms. The list of websites at the back of the book will give you a starting point for a search. If you’re not connected to the internet, the local tourist office can usually supply accommodation lists by post; ask specifically for simple accommodation in villages and the countryside.

If lodging is scarce and competition is likely, you might want to reserve a bed. We have tended not to book ahead, but have on occasion had to walk further than planned or spend more money than we would have liked, causing pain in foot or pocket accordingly. Where there is a choice, our decision is largely based on price. We go very low, working on the assumption we’ll be tired enough to sleep wherever there’s a mattress, a pillow and a blanket. This rule doesn’t apply in cities, where a bargain can literally mean a basement or fleapit or brothel, but in rural areas ‘cheap’ generally equates to small and unadorned, family-run, and possibly even quaint.

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