At Châteauroux - a city

A rather arduous day today, in total we have walked about 27 kms, including walking back to the chemin from Neuvy Pailloux (3 kms from the hotel) and extra walking now and then to see which route had signs! Anyway, we survived with no aches or pains, just rather tired!

But again, I have the dinner from last night to report…again, it was amazing. Our hotel, which was rather equivalent to a roadside motel, produced the most beautiful food - in taste and presentation. Even a fancy and delicious amuse bouche to start. We drink local wine usually, not on the international market, but we love it. This dinner Amr started with a lentil and fish dish, and I had a gazpacho (with many side garnishes), Amr had fish and I had duck for mains. Both fantastic, and the accompanying vegetables were all little specialties in themselves…hard to describe. Imagine perfectly smooth mashed potato, wrapped in a cylinder of a very fine potato crisp, planted with chives and a nasturtium!

Today I felt a little seedy, and I think it may be due to an overdose of this wonderful food - having to acclimatise to the butter and cream used to make it all so delicious. It doesn’t feel heavy at the time, but tonight we may seek out a Vietnamese meal (no hotel dinner tonight - we are on our own), and something very light.

Setting off this morning it was cool - 18° - and some moisture in the air. It had rained quite heavily yesterday late afternoon, and a little during the night. After a while we took out ponchos, but refrained from actually putting them on, and it all cleared up, and during the long walk it was even sunny and a little too hot by the end. But a breeze, and mostly lovely walking conditions. One funny incident was when Amr was exploring a potential path (wrong as it turned out) - he saw 14 rusted Citroens from the 30s all sitting in a row in a field!!

The first part was very pretty and comfortable but the last half of the walk got a little tedious as we approached Châteauroux. There was some highway walking, and then when we took the path around the city, a sort of ring road path, the signage through the fields got very poor and we just ploughed on and hoped, and then suddenly the signs would turn up again. It is always tedious entering cities, but we made it, and when we approached the centre Amr turned on his Google maps to lead us to the hotel. We got here just before 4 pm, so quite a long day. Cute hotel, small room, all good. We will sleep well tonight.Read more