France and Germany 2024

Breakfast started at 6am, and was nearly outside our room, but we heard nothing. Perhaps because no-one went: they all appeared when we appeared around 7:40. Cereal, bread and jam, yoghurt, an urn of coffee, hot water for tea (but only herbal or green tea available) and apple juice.

We dropped our bags off for the beloved La Malle Postale for the last time, and left the Gite around 8:10 on our last day (for now) of walking. It was only 18km to Cahors, but Cahors is more than a village and we wanted to see it.

No rain, and I wore only two T-shirts as it was supposed to start at 10 deg and be 23 deg by midday. Unfortunately the sun could not dry out the mud in minutes, so there was lots, but seemingly less, as there were always tracks around the frequent stretches of mire at the start.

It was relatively flat, so no sudden panoramas or changes of landscape, but walking in sunshine was a wonderful change. I could understand why people might want to go for weeks on end. It was no trouble to stop anywhere, look anywhere, sit anywhere or wear normal clothes. I think the biggest difference was the sense that one did not have to wait for the hotel at the end of the day to sit, relax, be warm and dry off without needing to manage coats and jackets and being crowded in.

There were a few farms but no villages on the way, but we stopped around 12 at a farmhouse with a huge lawn that had tables and chairs in the sun and served tea and coffee as the chooks scratched around in the grass,.. and only one person there. She was a lady from north of France who had driven to Conques, walked for a week, and would get the bus from Cahors to Conques the next morning and drive 8hrs home. No wonder the locals like doing the trip section by section!

After a coffee (me), local cake (both) and huge glass of mint-syrup water (Anne - GI cordial in a different world?), we went on, then stopped for lunch (bread and cheese) under some trees, sitting on rocks and hearing the occasional cuckoo. It is surprising how monotonous their calls can be! The phrase "going cuckoo" has a new meaning! We had passed quite a few people during the morning, but no-one went past as we sat there, and we did not see anyone on the last 45 mins or so into Cahors.

Cahors is a biggish town/small; city with a medieval old town. We walked in by crossing the Lot River, then around to the old stone bridge on the West (c. 15 mins), and to the hotel. Arrived there at 2pm, and luggage had arrived but room not yet ready... We were able to use a spare admin space to open cases and grab the bag of laundry, then walked into the old town to a laundromat. We thought we were inconspicuous in a small French laundromat, but St Craig of Kiama and Liz walked past and saw us. Washing done (sort of - unlike in Japan, the addition of soap is possible, but we had not realised). We walked back to the hotel (The Brit Hotel), had a shower and walked through the old town before meeting the aforesaid saint and spouse in a brasserie on a square in town.

Cahors is not as picturesque as Figeac, but has the same alleys and old buildings, with a magnificent church and other old buildings. There is an area called the amphitheatre: when excavating for a carpark, the remains of an amphitheatre were found, even though there is no known record of it.

Today (Wednesday) is a national holiday, as is tomorrow (Ascension Day), and half of France seems to be taking Friday off, so it was a large holiday crowd sitting around in about 20 deg with the sun shining until 730 or so. St Craig and Liz start the next 3 weeks of walking tomorrow. They headed off, and we had dinner in one of the few small cafes that was still open in the side-streets. A New Zealander ran it, and specialised in exotic burgers, like the Burger Bach place Nico once took us to in Durham. Not French, but very good. We talked for quite a time with him about French food laws, marketing and France.

The Brit Hotel looks like a Russian primary school from the outside, and the stairs and public spaces look the same, but the room is very bright, very clean and quite large. 1. Good shower and a bathroom with shelf space, too. 2. The wifi is as bad as the outside would imply. 3 No tea or coffee (I am beginning to appreciate the simple highway motels between Sydney and Mission Beach, perhaps because for the first time ever we are arriving at places in the early afternoon). 4 Excellent breakfast…and no need to pack bags before 8am. Our train leaves at 9:30, and the station is 3 minutes away.

38,179 steps, 30.5km and 35 flights … so about 417km since 21 April, and 1,288 flights of stairs in 18 days, according to my app.もっと詳しく