Arrived: Auvillar 3:45pm
Total hours: 8.5
Total kms: 32.5
Accumulated kms: 433.5
Weather: Rain in the morning, then cloudy with patches of sun
It was really nice walking out of Saint Martin in the rain this morning. The rain wasn't very heavy, just heavy enough to let you know it was raining and you were going to get really wet. The most fun thing about the rain is that it just turns all those beautiful dirt forest tracks to mud paths, and when you've got a day like today where - despite the contour map showing just one hill, I'm convinced whoever does these things is drunk at work - you are going up and down steep hills all day, at times it can feel like trying to walk on ice in socks. I swear it took me a week to climb one hill, every foot I got in front of me slide halfway back by the time I lifted the other leg.
I went through Mossaic today, and decided to actually be a tourist and take a look. Unfortunately it's All Saints Day, some kind of holiday for remembering the dead, and nearly everything was closed. I didn't find the large cathedral that the French tourism ads always show a pretty girl reading in, but I did find an open boulangerie where I bought a chocolatine. Yum!
When I finally got into Auvillar I needed to find a place to stay, and everything looked decidedly closed. I first headed up a very steep slope and long road out of town to check the gite that last night's host couldn't reach, and they indeed appeared to be away. I decided to give up right away and walk back to a hotel I had seen. As I passed a house, a woman came out trying to speak to me in French. She worked out I was a pilgrim looking for a room. I gestured toward the hotel and she shook her hands, "Fermé, tout fermé!" Everything's closed. She pointed down a side street, said, "Maison" (house) and ,ade a motion that I should go and knock on the door.
So I found myself at Isabelle's private and un-sign posted gite, and it is the best place I have stayed in yet. She has a huge white dog that took an instant liking to me, and two young daughters who did the same. I'm staying in something like a small granny flat out back of the house, and it's perfect. When asked if I wanted breakfast in the morning I declined as usual, then something told me to change my mind. I was promptly delivered a massive basket laden with cheese, orange juice, milk, butter, home made bread, eggs from the chickens, yoghurt, fruit and more. So good, I ate half of it at dinner and still have loads of food left. This is the first place to make me almost feel like I'm home, I almost wish I could just spend another day here. Actually, I probably could if I wanted to. As I sit snug in here with the heater, listening to the wind howl outside, it doesn't seem like a bad idea at all.
Mossaic - I don't think this is the cool cathedral in all the tourism photos, I missed that somehow.
This road stretched out for a really, really long time.
I thought it was about time I took a self portrait.
The new Paris fashions - it'll be all the rage in Australia in a couple of months.
So that's where the clouds come from.
This is in the little town of Auvillar, as is the next one.
The guy walking under the arch is actually a pilgrim I came across a couple of nights later.
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