Day 12 to La Salvetat-sur-Agout, 21 km

Today is brought to you by the colour green. With supporting roles played by water, yellow flowers, and church bells.

It could not have been more perfect weather. I wore my gloves for about an hour first thing this morning, my jacket until I had lunch. It got warm in the afternoon but not too warm.

A lot of the day was spent following rivers. There were lots of little streams running down the hillsides to meet them. Brooks, creeks, streams - I’m realizing I don’t know the difference. But there was a lot of running water. And then for about an hour the chemin goes along the shore of a “lake.” It was really a reservoir. And while it’s beautiful to see water (and it seems the lake is a big deal), the lakeshore felt very sterile to me. So I asked at the tourist office later, when I was checking in to the gite - was that actually a lake? Well, no. And, yes, they dynamited the houses and drowned the villages. Apparently someone local, who would be about my age, and was a child in one of the villages when this happened in the 1960s, wrote a book about it.

Only one very tiny village en route today, we’d call it a hamlet. Ho uses, some animal enclosures, a big church. The bells were ringing as I passed through. There had also been bells chiming earlier. Very cool to be walking in the forest and to hear them.

Despite everything getting flatter today, it was still pretty hilly. More beech forests - one with daffodils. Lots of moss-covered stone walls, the semi tidy ones. And eventually up and over the biggest hill of the day to get a view of another reservoir. And then past some impressive forsythias in people’s gardens. And down a small road, lined st various points, with huge dandelions.

This village is big enough to have a few stores and a cafe-bar that stays open all afternoon. I had a post-walk panaché and then took another stab at perfecting the coffee order: allongé with milk on the side. That was good! It won’t work everywhere but good to know.

I’m staying in the gite communal, the municipal gite. Massive old presbytery. Thick, thick walls and glacial cold as soon as you open the door. The sleeping rooms are upstairs and thankfully not cold. There are three of us here tonight - the same as last night. The young woman Cyri’elle who has been on the same itinerary as me for days now, and Florence, who is probably more or less my age and is from Brittany and will be doing my next three days in two. Three pilgrims, three bedrooms (each with two beds). We each get our own room.

Gourmet meal from the tiny supermarket: a carrot, a tetrapack of fairly good vegetable soup, bread, a very soft blue cheese (not Roquefort, which comes from here) chosen because it was in the smallest package, and two little containers of yoghurt. I’ll have the other two for breakfast. Have I complained yet about having to eat first thing in the morning? Ugh.

I’m pretty happy with how everything is feeling. Shoes remain great and worth the drive to Ottawa to get them. Knees are good. Achilles is happy.

Tomorrow is longer but, I am ever hopeful, flatter. And maybe a coffee stop early afternoon???Read more