Up 450m Down 511m
After a good evening and a reasonable night's sleep, we took our leave of Pimbo.
As we walked we saw hundreds of swallows sitting on the power lines, obviously on their migration back to Africa. Our first stop was the town of Arzacq-Arrazigust, a town with two town squares and of course we first picked the one whose boulangerie was shut, requiring a detour to the other square and the second boulangerie!
At the next village of Louvigny we stopped for morning prayer. As we set off again, we looked on our iPods to see if there were any open Wi-fi connections. We were so intent on our hunt that we missed a waymark and carried straight on and only confirmed our mistake after 1 km.
When we got back on the right track, at the next hamlet we discovered Wi-fi at the first house.
We passed from arable sweetcorn monoculture back into cattle country before ending back in sweetcorn country, but a much greener country with green grass, rather than brown dried grass.
For the last km of our walk we walked with a very lonely Swiss man, who is loosing his eyesight due to glaucoma and in a short time told us his life story and family history. He was obviously in need of company, but our ways had to part as he was walking a further 10 km than us, but we listened while we could.
Our journey ended in the village of Pomps. We are staying in the village Gite that our guide book describes in this way:- "Spartan gite accommodation available in sports hall". We were shown by the man who runs the gite into a portakabin, stuffed full of beds, they also have beds in the men's and women's changing rooms. We selected two and paid the man.
We then decided to avail ourselves of the washing machine which took about 1 & 3/4 hours for the cycle!
At 7 all the guests assembled for our meal, two English, two Norwegians and seven French. The French people were not happy bunnies to say the least with the food.
The food came altogether on a trolley, including everything for breakfast. Our starter was a thin watery soup, with a little bit of onion floating in it. The main was pork and veg cooked in red wine with rice. The cheese course was a square of processed cheese similar to Laughing Cow cheese, this was followed by an apple tart.
I don't know if it was the food (It wasn't the best, but I have eaten much much worse) or a perceived blow to national pride, because as we all know, the French do (quite rightly) take a great deal of pride in their cuisine.
But at the end of the day for 10€ it was value for money.
Over the last month we have received loads of comments from friends and family, we really enjoyed receiving them, and they make all the typing worth while. I'm sorry that I can't respond to everyone. But please do keep them coming.
It is also my intention to add photos to the blog but to do this we need Internet cafes, which are few and far between, here in rural France.
Love Jeremy and Lesley
On the Camino in France
1 comment:
Now we are home,Dad is following the route with great attention! We shall miss the blogs until we get home again to the computer next week.Love Mum and Dad.
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