DAY 35 - PÉROUGES TO VILLEBOIS

We started today with a wander around Pérouges before breakfast. 

We had Pérouges to ourselves this morning

A highlight at breakfast this morning was the large selection of local jams on offer.

We had a choice of 8 jams for breakfast this morning: apricot, peach, redcurrant, raspberry, strawberry, rose petal, violet, and poppy. One of us (not the one in the photo ; the other one) managed to find room to try all of them. The verdict? She preferred the fruit ones to the flower ones, but lamented that there was no plum or rhubarb jam among the selection.

We started our walk a little later than usual. It took us a little while to join up with our path - the GRP du Beaujolais au Bugey par la Dombes. On the way we found the following memorial plaque to fallen resistance fighters.

Just about every village in this area has a memorial to WWII resistance fighters 

When we did join our path we found it was also part of the Assisi Way, a long-distance walking path between Vézelay and Assisi. We had not heard of this path until yesterday, when we were having a conversation with a couple of cyclists outside Villars-les-Dombes and they asked us if we were walking the Assisi Way. We weren't. 

An example of a difficult-to-find path indicator. While the sign for the Assisi Way (black monk and white dove against an orange background) is quite clear, the yellow and red marking of the GRP that we were following is only just visible in an indentation in the tree trunk. 

The path took us through the usual combination of fields and forests. 

As usual, we had the path to ourselves 

As we approached Lagnieu we saw a couple of long-distance walkers. We caught up with them in Lagnieu and asked if they were walking the Assisi Way. They were.

Approaching Lagnieu, we saw a pair of walkers ahead of us. We caught up with them in Lagnieu and discovered that they were walking the Assisi Way.

At Lagnieu we came into contact with another of France's great rivers - the Rhône. 

The Rhône just south-east of Lagnieu 

From Lagnieu we followed the Via Rhona, a long-distance cycle route which was well-patronised by walkers and cyclists of all ages, to Villebois, our stop for the night. 

With the hills of the Bugey on the left and the Rhône on the right, this stretch of the Via Rhona is another part of France's fast-growing network of long-distance cycleways

Day:  35

Distance:  29.76km

Walking time:  6hrs 20mins

Elevation gain:  390 metres

Cumulative distance:  909.5 km