Starts flat, long days and not too interesting, but after Montpellier, some true mountain trails, great views, and quite a bit more rugged than the Le Puy GR 65 route. Most days no facilities between start of day and end of day, so need to carry lunch supplies. Our plan followed the normal stages, and km per day were typically in the 22 to 27 km range. After three days of dragging in tired each night, and having to start early the next day without seeing the village, we modified our plan and stuck in some short days of 13 km or so. That meant we didn't reach Toulouse, but had a more enjoyable trip. Usually reserved the next night's accommodation, and regretted it the few times we didn't. We saw few pilgrims, but pilgrim level accommodations have few beds, so best to call ahead. This trip was in Sept. and weather was good. Only wore raingear a few hours. It was quite windy in some spots and I wore my wind jacket daily, and wind pants for about 3 days. We used trail runners with no problems. Having French at a sufficient level to carry on basic conversations with French pilgrims would greatly improve the experience.

Our Google Planning Spreadsheet with towns, distances, cress references to CFSJ GR 653 Guide and Miam Miam Dodo guide

GR 653 Arles to Toulouse Planning Spreadsheet

Our Google GR 653 As Walked Spreadsheet - the original plan altered for what we actually did

Google GR 653 Arles to Dourgne As Walked Spreadsheet

Our Gear List

The gear list is a google spreadsheet. To get an xls file you can save, click on  http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pPFto0EzOaDsxg2LWJ5jPYg - on the bottom right of the resulting google spreadsheet is an edit button. Click that, and you will be able to view it in a form that can be saved off to your hard drive as an xls file. If you look at our gear page you can get more info on the packs we use.

Arles GR 653 Trip Details
Elevation Profile for Arles to Toulouse

I've done a Google chart showing elevation profile between Arles and Toulouse
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pPFto0EzOaDu9skpCz-efAQ

GR 653 Guidebooks, Maps

 We started out with three, the 2007 CFSJ guide for Arles - Puente la Reina i. Arles to Toulouse by Marigold Fox, the Le Chemin d'Arles vers Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle by Balen & Siréjol, and the miam-miam-dodo du chemin d'Arles (the last two in French). We also carried some of the updates to the CFSJ 2004 guide, since they didn't seem to be incorporated in the 2007 guide. Part way thru, we bought Sur le chemin de Saint-Jacques-de-Compostelle La via Tolosana, la voie du soleil by Lepere & Dehnel (in French). This is a 2008 version though nothing in it contains the date, and there is a 2003 version with the same isbn. There is not a TopoGuide for the GR 653. Balen & Siréjol is the closest thing to it, but lacks the 1/50000 maps, just has strip maps. They do have a good city map of Toulouse with the routes thru the city clearly marked.

We also carried the IGN 1/100000 topo maps 64, 65, 66. For the whole route you would need 63 and 69 as well. You can get these various places online, for example http://www.francewalkingtours.com/ . I highlighted the route and cut it out so we just had strip maps with topo info. We can barely read French, but used the strip maps from the Balen & Siréjol guide daily, the text rarely. I got the Lepere guide because it had maps in the back that I thought were more detailed than what we had, and it had some city maps. When I looked at it closely, I realized that the maps in back were the same as the IGN maps we already had, though in some cases their trace of the gr653 route was more accurate than on the IGN maps. Their city maps were office of tourism city center maps of Arles, Montpellier, Castres and Toulouse with the gr653 route added. I would not carry the Lepere guide again unless I read French much better. I would just print the city maps from the internet.

The 1/100000 maps are available on a cd from ign, as well as in hardcopy, but the cds are very expensive. They also have 1/25000 maps available hardcopy and cd/dvd - these would be overkill in my opinion. The best I can tell, the GR 653 runs thru departments 30, 12, 81, 82, 32, 65, 64. Arles is in dept 13, but you are almost instantly out of it.

CFSJ book error: on page 49, 1st para, 4k to Pechbusque, the instructions should say
"and turn L onto the chemin d'Etang." As printed, it now says turn R.

GR 653 Waymarks

Until after Montpellier, marginal - frequently painted over or absent, and in some cases there were reroutings where we had to decide whether to follow the CFSJ directions or the waymarks. Sometimes the waymarks didn't correspond to any of the guides, and the guides didn't correspond to each other. After Montpellier they were there, but no paint was wasted on extra waymarks before absolutely needed, and it helped to have two pairs of eyes looking for waymarks. The first three days, we got lost every day for a short while, and in going into Vauvert, were totally lost, and just kept asking people for the direction to Vauvert, and kept following small roads and flagging cars for information until we got there. Some of that is just getting adjusted to the style of a particular guidebook's directions. On page 12 last paragraph in the CFSJ guide for getting out of Arles, the beginning of the sentence gives multiple details on street by street basis for getting to the edge of town and without taking a breath ends with "to the D37 at Saliers". We use our Balen and Siréjol strip map to guide us, and eventually find that the D37 is some 12km and many intersections later.

GR 653 Accommodations

We made reservations ahead every night - sometimes two nights ahead for weekends, except once for Montpellier. We thought a big city would always have someplace, so didn't call till Vendergues. Montpellierity center was totally booked & after about 10 calls to tourist office & hotels, found a place on the outskirts of town that we had to taxi to. As it turned out, it was within walking distance of the tram, so the next morning we were able to take tram and bus to Grabels. We didn't call Castres till night before, and couldn't find a place. Our gite host then called for us the next morning, and amazingly enough, found a place for us at a hotel we had called and got a "complet" response. We booked a couple of days ahead for Toulouse, and a good thing, since we got there in mid afternoon, and all the hotels we saw, including ours had "complet" signs on the door. Since our French is poor, we first called miam miam dodo places with an English spoken flag, but muddled thru in French if no English sites. We couldn't handle places that just had an answering machine in French. We did not book at pilgrim minimum cost accommodations if others were available, thinking those should be reserved for those going all the way to Santiago. Several times we booked in a gite just to meet other pilgrims and found we were the only ones there. Another time the muni gite was full and they put us into an overflow gite, and we met maybe six other pilgrims. We saw few to no people walking during the day. There was a group of five French women who always seemed to find some unlisted place to stay, but our French wasn't up to that. Robert of the "Solitary Walker" blog told us he usually walked into a place without reservations, and found a place, but he was staying at the lowest cost church based or municipal based facilities. Incidently, it turned out that Robert and I were both following Rebekah's Moratinos blog moratinoslife.blogspot.com  .

GR 653 and Phones

For the first time we carried a cell phone. I ordered an unlocked quad band gsm phone online, and bought a Orange sim card and Orange recharge card from a France Telecom store in Paris. That gave me about 50 euros of time. I had to add about 15 Euros later. It was very useful for this trip. One problem - the charger. I fully charged the battery at home. After about a week in France, I tried to recharge it, and the charger failed. I had assumed the charger would handle 240/110 volts ok, just as my camera battery charger did. Not so. We finished the walking part of our trip on the original charge to the battery. For the last night, we had to ask our host to phone ahead for us. When we got back to Paris for the return home, I asked the hotel if they had a spare charger. They brought out a box, and one matched my phone, so I am ok for next year. When you buy a sim card in France, they will need a local address. We just gave them the name and address of our hotel and that was ok with them.

GR 653 City Comments

In general the waymarks are missing, infrequent and/or altered in cities. It is helpful to get the tourist map of the city. In case of the larger cities there are sometimes two maps - the town center and a larger area map. Get both and use your guidebook to trace your route out of the city ahead of time. As I get time, I will post the links to the appropriate city maps below.

The CFSJ guide is a little jaded about cities, talks about dull walks thru suburbs. That may be true for Europeans, but for us, any walk thru a European city is interesting and the ones on the GR 653 were no exception.

France Topo Street and Image Maps - Freely Viewable Online

France has a government supported site - http://www.geoportail.fr/  -  that has online interactive views of street maps, topo maps, and photo image maps. The image maps are not Google Earth, but a similar product. To get right to the GR 653, enter http://www.geoportail.fr/visu2D.do?ter=metropole and in the search box at the top left center (Aller À) enter Arles. Two town choices come back. Select the department 13 choice. On the resulting map, there is a directory on the left (Catalogue). Click the Cartes folder open and check the Cartes IGN box. Click the photographies folder open if it is not open, and check the photgraphies box. Set the right vertical slider to just above Rue, set the left Carte IGN slider to about 50%, and the Photographies slider to about 50% Then take the hand, and start dragging the map to the right, and you will be able to follow the GR 653 west. Experiment with all the sliders for levels of detail.

Arles Map with GR 653 Route

The city tourist map shows the GR 653 as a blue barred line
http://www.tourisme.ville-arles.fr/document/pdfs_document/plan_centre_ville_arles.pdf 
A broader area map:
http://www.tourisme.ville-arles.fr/document/pdfs_document/villeetcamargue.pdf

St. Gilles Map with GR 653 Route

I setup a Google map with the route:
St. Gilles google map with route

Gallargues-le-Montueux Map with GR 653 Route

Again I had to setup a Google map with the route. Not sure of the waymarks out of town as we got lost here, but this route will get you back on the waymarks.
Gallargues Route

My crude depiction of the route as waymarked out of Villetelle (just after Gallargues)
Waymarked Route

Castres Maps with GR 653 Route

The CFSJ route just goes thru the edge of the city. The route in the Lepere guide goes thru the city center and then joins the CFSJ route as it exits the city sw of the Pont de Metz. The waymarks stop at Place Soult where the Lepere variant starts. There are a few on the Lepere route, and they resume again as you follow the cfsj route down Emilie de Villenueve and cross the Durenque. I've added blue arrows on the two maps below to indicate the cfsj route and red arrows for the Lepere variant.
images\castresarea.pdf
images\castrescenter.pdf

Montpellier Map, bus tram alternatives

The only map I could find is a nice interactive map. The blue line is the tram 1 line that goes to the euromedicine station where you can catch the 24 bus to Grabels.
http://www.ot-montpellier.fr/en/city-map/

This is a good English description of the alternatives for walking, busing thru Montpellier, including an alternative not covered elsewhere - taking tram and walking to waymarked trail, as opposed to tram then bus to Grabels http://chemindarles.free.fr/forums/viewtopic.php?id=47&lang=Deutsch

Public transport - tram, bus lines
http://pyxis.montpellier-agglo.com/tam/page_en.php?id_rubrique=8

A topo map illustrating how to get from the Grabels bus to the waymarked trail
Grabels topo

Toulouse Maps with GR 653 Route, bus route, schedule

We haven't walked there yet, so don't have accurate route info. From the guidebooks, it appears like the waymarked route comes up from the bottom into the middle of the city. There is another route east of that, which follows the Canal de Midi and appears a little shorter and closer to accommodations.
!st choice is Balen & Siréjol's map of Toulouse with routes, then
Dept of Tourism interactive map:
http://www.toulouse-tourisme.com/plan/plan.php?zoom=13&lang=2
Google Map (I've added route info in three colors. Blue or Green matches guidebook descriptions. Red routes are just approximations of the route and shouldn't be used in place of guidebook directions.)
Google map of Toulouse

To leave town, CFSJ GR 653 guide recommends taking metro to Arènes station and catching the 64 bus to the Colomiers Nord, Champagne station. This is the bus route map and schedule:
http://www.tisseo-urbain.fr/734016.pdf
I've marked where the Champagne station is on the Google map above. Waymarks begin at the Champagne station, and I've traced the start of the trail there.

Various routes thru and out of Toulouse by the Toulouse pilgrim association:
http://compostelle.toulouse.free.fr/article.php3?id_article=19

Toulouse - Revel Buses

We ended our 2008 walk at Dourgne, so needed to get from there to airport at Toulouse. Taxied to Revel and took bus. In 2009 bus from Toulouse back to Revel & taxi to start point. See this link for Toulouse area bus lines Bus lines 56 and 57 are the ones between Toulouse and Revel. Click on the links to the right of the line to see the schedule. One is summer hours, the other winter hours.

Auch Maps with GR 653 Route.

Google map - I've added route from tourist bureau map, and several accommodations

Tourist bureau maps - big and slow to access, both city center and larger scale maps::
http://www.auch-tourisme.com/photos-auch/PlanAuch.pdf
http://www.auch-tourisme.com/photos-auch/PlanAuch-BasseDef.pdf

Maps of Spain Link

Once beyond Somport you will need maps of Spain. Here is a good link
http://www.embassyworld.com/maps/Maps_Of_Spain.html

GR 653 Stages Comments

Saint-Gilles to Vauvert - this is one of the few lunch break towns. We got lost on the CFSJ guide page 14 1st para. Never found the turn sharp R along a wooded valley-bottom. Last waymark before was round irrigation thing on ground. X in right direction and normal waymark straight ahead, so went straight. At next T no waymark any direction though we walked about 100 yards on each option. Finally started asking farm workers way to Vauvert and stopping passing cars, and eventually got there.

CFSJ GR 653 Guide P14 11k to Gallargues.

Gallargues - if you stay at the excellent Lou Cigalou CH in Aigues-Vives, you need to call them. Don't call where the gr653 leaves the D363, but walk up the D363 about 1/2 k to the trailroad tracks where there is a little unattended Gare with parking areas. Call from there and say you are at the Gare. The CFSJ guide and the miam miam dodo frequently use the road numbers, but there usually isn't a sign on the road giving the numbers, and the locals don't know the road numbers.

Leaving Gallargues - waymarks missing or misleading, but walk on the road on the left south? Edge of the A9 towards the bridge, and under the bridge you will find the waymarks again, leading to Villetelle.

Leaving Villetelle, the waymarks don't correspond to any guidebook, don't take you past the roman bridge, but instead head straight for the intersection of the A9 and D34, and from there follow the A9 on one side or the other to Vendergues.

Montpellier to Grabels

 The CFSJ 2004 updates suggested taking the 21 bus from Vendargues to Montpellier center, and then the tram 1 line to the euromedicine station, then the 24 bus to the end of the line in Grabels - direction Le Pradas. Don't go to the end of the line. About 5 minutes before, the road splits with sports stadium or something like that signed to the left on d102 (to Bel Air), and the bus goes to the right on d127. The split intersection is labeled le Chateau on the topo map. Don't know what sign says. You want to get off there and walk up the road towards the stadium. You will cross a bridge over a river in a few hundred yards, and you turn left, back towards Montpellier. You will walk thru a parking lot and a river side park with the river on your left. You will cross a little bridge that jogs to the right with a little stream under it. Cross and continue till you see a bridge crossing the river on your left. At that point you will see waymarks indicating that you turn right and go up over the hill. At that point you are back on the trail. A little topo map to illustrate

CFSJ GR 653 2007 Guide Arles to Toulouse suggested changes/additions

P21 Hostellerie St. Benoit on GR on way out of town.

The 4k road walk along the river Hérault is incredible. Walk on the river side, and keep looking into the gorge, water spurting from the sides, wonderful.

P22. Accomodations. Saint-Guilhem-le-Désert is a beautiful little village, and the climb out of town the next day is your first taste of a true mountain trail. We stayed at Hotel Rest. Guilhem de Orange at foot of village.

Joncels - CH Villa Issiates excellent accomodations and food - pilgrims welcome.

P28 accomodations: Le Bousquet - CH La Borio - nice - about 1/2 k beyond town away from trail. Owners English - American - give ride back to trail.

P30 Saint Gervais - we stayed in a low cost private gite - Mr. Michel Bros. We were the only ones there, and they shared their meal with us. They spoke English. His mother had made the wine.

P35 Accomodations Anglès - Gite La Guariguette - historic hotel now decorated with artistic flair - we were only ones there. Had our own huge well lighted room. Neighbor let us in. Owner prepared simple meal for us.

P37 Accomodations Boissezon - fine new public gite - we had our own room with double bed and shower. Cafe owner was host and found us a place to stay in Castres.

Planning for Toulouse to Puenta la Reina

We haven't walked this part, so can't verify the info - just what we gleaned from guidebooks, etc.

GR 653 Profile Toulouse to Puenta la Reina

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pPFto0EzOaDugmBKIv2lPew

GR 653 Toulouse to Puenta la Reina Planning Spreadsheet

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pPFto0EzOaDt2HHJ3en5bcw

Amawalker's blog entry on pilgrim accommodations on the Toulouse to Puenta la Reina segment

http://2009pilgrims.blogspot.com/2009/01/planning-is-such-fun.html

Oloron-Sainte-Marie

If you are planning to stop or start your GR 653 section here, This is a city link with your transportation options: http://www.tourisme-oloron.com/A-facilitated-access

Fountains Of Escot Gite about 15 km beyond Oloron