The day started with the local Church bell tolling the hour of seven, five minutes later seven bongs chimed again. This is a feature of this whole region of France that the church bells always ring twice, once on the hour and then at about 5 minutes later, which is a very good feature for those with short memories as we get a second stab at knowing what time it is.
We set out and as usual picked up our lunch and again, as usual, left town via a climb up a hill to the lovely village of Montredon, which marked our transition into the Department of Lot and the Diocese of Cahors. At the church of Saint-Michael under a large welcome notice, was a room where we could rest with juice, tea, coffee and a kettle and cakes to help refresh us, and our fellow pilgrims, on our way. They had also left the Church stamp out for us (attached to the wall by a chain), so that we could add their stamp to our collection in our Pilgrim Passports.
We moved on visiting the chapelle de Guirande some 3 km later, which had some 14th century wall paintings.
We carried on up a hill past an old aerodrome when my left calf went funny, the muscles all went stiff and quite painful. We stopped hoping it would pass, and I rubbed Tiger Balm into it. It died down a bit but was with me for the rest of the day.
We passed through a number of villages and hamlets, as usual passing querky French street art, this time a giant bicycle,
and past a gite with a board all about being a pilgrim.
We were expecting a long walk into into Figeac as the book said that after a certain cross roads, it was 9.5km. However, after a long gentle decent of about 2km, we were in the outskirts,and before we knew it, we were at the river and following the signs for the tourist information centre. At the centre Bernard, a very helpful man, booked our hotel for the next two nights, and gave us a map and told us where to find a cyber cafe. Oppersite the tourist information we also found a laundrette which we visited later.
We got to our hotel and, as you know, I discovered my iPod had died. We then went into town to do the laundry which was slightly confusing as everything was operate by a central control panel, but after some very patient help from the lady in the laundrette, we got the laundry done.
We returned to the hotel for our food and headed back to town to send my post on Lesley's iPod, as we had found a hotspot near the laundrette. By that time I had removed my contact lenses and put on my glasses. To read the ipod screen, I had It's taken them off and carefully placed them on the wall. Whilst showing Lesley an e-mail, I sat down straight onto the glasses bending both arms!
At that point I decided that I better go to bed before further disasters befell me.
On the Camino
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