Day 3 Gallargues to Vendarge, 29+km

A long day but with a blessedly normal wind! At some point I’ll have to start leaving earlier. I did not get out today until 8:30. Walked across the village for a croissant and coffee in a bakery full of Easter chocolates. Not just bunnies and eggs. The shop changes themes every year. This year’s is some kind of gremlin! I was not walking until about 9:00.

Easy exit from Gallargues past a tiny bullring. Along a canal. Then over a river on a relatively busy road bridge with no guardrails or sides (to accommodate flooding). It was freaky. Then a series of four villages. I managed to find a coffee in village #3 in a super old school cafe. No food. Big tobacco stand, rugby paraphernalia everywhere. Smell of cigarettes. (Not allowed to smoke inside but…) I left there about 1:01 and realized the woman had been wanting to leave and close up to go home for lunch.

The afternoon dragged a bit - or I did. Nothing open in any of the (very beautiful) villages. I took two big breaks, which I don’t usually do. At one point a woman came up the path to say a tree had come down a little ways along, and she could not get by. She said we had to go up the road instead. I stayed behind to go have a look. She was right. It was massive. Fence along the only place one could have gone around. So I went back out to take the detour, which was maybe a kilometre. It put us onto a bike path that would eventually cross the Camino. It also opened the opportunity for a short cut at the other end, a way to skip one of the villages (the one up the biggest hill). I should have taken it! But I was hopeful something would be open. No luck.

Just before the end of the day there was another huge tree down. This one over a few rows of grape vines. Both trees were some kind of pine. We assume they fell in yesterday’s big wind.

I keep trying to think of what these villages are like in the summer when it is hot. Apparently temperatures over 40 degrees are not unusual anymore. Schools are not air conditioned, so they have to close a lot in June. And, the woman at the gite the other night said, they are living more and more of their lives at night. She also said she has to put “sails” over top of her tomatoes or they will burn.

It was 5:30 by the time I finished for the day. Too late! I’m staying at a private gite. It has 6 beds, but there just two of us here. Me and the woman I met by the tree. She’s Belgian and planning to continue to Santiago. She walked three weeks in Italy before coming here!

I also saw a man walking today. He passed me at some point and then I passed him when he was having a nap on a bench. So that is 3 of us.

Packaged salad from the grocery store for dinner. And then a friend and old colleague facetimed me so I could see another friend and old colleague get feted at her last lecture before she retires. Sometimes technology is good.

Tomorrow is a short 12 kilometres to the big city of Montpelier!Read more