Day 17 Dourgne to Les Cassés, 35 km

Another drizzly day. A long easy walk. A grumbling knee. An inadvertent and a planned shortcut. An okay coffee and pain aux raisins around 11. A sweet, winding canal built in the late 1600s. And a great gite at the end of it all.

Today a lot of the chemin really was flat. Finally. Just point yourself in the right direction and walk. It was cold enough to keep both jackets on all day long. Another long stretch of soaking grass and thus wet socks. There were two sizable towns before mid day and then it was all canal until just before the turnoff for the gite (a km off the chemin). About 4 hours.

The little canal is called La Rigole de la Plaine and it was built to keep the Canal de Midi supplied with water. Lots of park amenities along it through the town and then just the canal, the path, some cool bridges, and trees.

Despite my best intentions and because they ask you to clean your room well, I did not get out of the Abbaye until almost 8. I got here around 4:30. There wasn’t really anywhere to sit all afternoon, so I just kept going, trying to imagine a bench into existence. Close to the end of the day, the GR turns right to make a scenic loop around what I assume is a reservoir. Walking straight, which I did, lets you save 1.5 km. Because it was not hot, my feet were perfectly fine after the long day.

Another night with my own huge, spotless room at gite LaPasseur-Elle. You cross a little bridge to get to the gate into the back garden. Fantastic dinner (vegetable soup,as every night, though they are all different; pasta gratin, aka baked Mac and cheese; sausage particular to one of the towns I walked through today; simple salad from the garden; fruit crumble). The owner has walked all sorts of caminos.

Tomorrow I will follow the tiny canal pretty much all day, until it empties into the bigger, busier canal du midi, which I will follow for two days to Toulouse. Flatter and shorter than the main GR route but shady. Also more boats! The people who write the notes on Gronze cannot hide their disdain for those who follow the canal! A true pilgrim would surely climb some more hills!Read more