Nîmes

Others were walking on, but for me the pilgrimage, begun on 2nd April, has ended. Nor do I think I'll return to Einsiedeln, to do more of the Swiss route and link up with the Voie du Puy. It has been a memorable experience (worthy of a separate book), but I enjoyed my time in Germany more than this last week since leaving Konstanz, and not just because of the change in weather.

Try as I might to plan trains to get me from Einsiedeln to join Caroline in the Gers in one day, without going via Paris I couldn't. So tonight I am spending in Nîmes: my photograph shows an interesting juxtaposition of old and new (taken as I walked round the Roman arena).

I feared we were running late at the start of the first leg of my journey, down from 900 metres to near the shore of Lake Zürich, and that I'd miss my connection. Why did I worry? Swiss trains run like clockwork. And the mist cleared as we passed Lac Léman, so at last there was a clear view of some snowy mountains.

After Geneva, where I resisted buying an English newspaper before going through Customs, I watched the scenery change as we passed Annecy, Aix-les-Bains and Chambéry on our way to Valence's whizzy TGV interchange, one line high above the other. From there it was a short and beautiful final evening leg to Nîmes. From the Alps to the Mediterranean in five instalments.