While walking I carried a small spiral notebook in my shirt pocket. I would use it to make short comments (sometimes just a word or two) of any real or imagined notable event and then in the evening use my annoying ASUS notebook to type a full account of each day. One evening I asked dw if she remembered anything about the walk after Aubrec.
"No," she said. "Should I?"
"What? Am I here by myself?" I asked.
"I live in the moment; it's how I savor life."
And then she informed me that her brain wasn't working properly because she had a sun rash on her calves.
I know all about the knee bone connecting to the thigh bone and etc. but that still seemed to be a pretty thin excuse.
After an apparently uneventful walk we arrived at St. Comes d'olt, which is not a different way of saying St. Comes the dolt ---
The spiral steeple St Comes d'olt
Leaving St Comes
Olt is the old name of the river Lot. St. Comes is another beautiful medieval town -- this whole region is a well deserved UNESCO World Heritage area. (The trail is still frequently terrible -- eroded and rocky -- but the scenery is stunning).
We stayed in a gite that is part of an Ursuline convent (still active) and the room was one of the best of the walk: modern, very comfortable and with a private bath. (The bathroom had a tiled water resistant floor with a drain in one corner. The shower was just a spray hose attached to the wall in that corner. You were expected to be bright enough not to spray the 220 volt outlet, the light switch or the toilet paper) St. Comes and the room was so nice we decided to stay another day -- alas, no room at the inn so we got a late (9A.M.) start, walking through the heat of the day which we usually tried to avoid.
A few more days and we came to Conques, another Most Beautiful village and more than most, it really is. It marks the half-way point of the trail, and many French either quit walking at that point, or start on the second half (taking two or more years to do the trail), and many just walk between Le Puy and Conques as that's the nicest part of the whole tra
il. It would be easy to spend days photographing the village. It's justifiably a major regional tourist attraction -- a lot of people, but still tolerable.
Our gite was part of a still active monastery adjacent to the church. Again modernized and very comfortable, except for the giant spider that could have leapt on my face while I was sleeping. Our room overlooked the church and a row of reusable stone coffins. On our second night (we stayed two days) we opened our windows and as we lay in bed we were treated to a just loud enough organ concert from the church. And to our surprise we met Robert again. He had been a couple of days ahead of us, but was delayed with food poisoning (something we both escaped) and then planned to spend an extra day in Conques.
The tiles were about 10 inches square
After Conques, the trail significantly improved, although it continued (and kept it up for the whole 500 miles) to climb up and down every available hill. At one point near Livinhac the trail veered off the road it was following, climbed a steep rocky bluff, and continued to follow the road, only 100 feet higher. We just kept following the road and were pleased to see that several people behind us followed our lead. On the second half of the walk we were more willing to follow a map and avoid some of the more irritating parts of the trail.
One of the windows, Chapel St. Roch
Our gite in Livenhoc -- top floor, bathroom in a different building.
We started playing a car game in Spain that we resumed in France. When on a road, the one walking in front will call "Car" when they see a car coming, and the one behind will reply "Check". It's a reasonable warning system as often the rear guard isn't paying attention -- looking around, searching for a tasty ripe berry, or plum or apple. And the leader does have to pay more attention: looking for trail markers, piles of poop, holes in the roadside, etc. After a time, the game was expanded to calling out "Truck", "Giant Truck", "Tractor" and so on. And if the vehicle was approaching from the rear, the proper response was "Catch". At one point dw said she considered calling out "Car" as soon as she heard one, but she was afraid I would forget about it before it actually came close. I pointed out that I'm not THAT deaf, and she said: "Yes you are!". I would have responded with a clever mot, but I wasn't sure what she said.
TODAY'S BOOK: Extinction -- Douglas H. Erwin. Erwin writes about the great Permian extinction of 250 million years ago (dw read this and fell asleep -- "That book sounds better than Benadryl" she said), when about 90% of life on earth became extinct in less than a 100,000 years. He writes about what became extinct, and what survived (often, just barely) and what caused it all, with several possibilities. He names many, many different groups (blastoids, crinoids, fusulinid foraminifera, etc) and eras (Changhsingian Stage of the Late Permian, Phanerozoic period) all of which makes reading a slog in places. It's interesting enough that I'll finish it, but it is a book that's easy to put down.
JOKE OF THE DAY: It's a few days late: Originally,Hellmanns mayonnaise was made only in England, but was a great favorite -- wildly popular -- in Mexico. And, as is little known, the Titanic, after New York, was scheduled to stop in Veracruz to deliver to Mexico the 80,000 jars of Hellmanns Mayonnaise it was carrying as cargo. Of course, the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic and so to this day Mexico commemorates (not celebrates) Sinko De Mayo.
What do you call a hen staring at lettuce? Chicken Caesar Salad.
FACTOID OF THE DAY: Warsaw Poland has a mermaid showing her boobs on its Coat of Arms.
And so it goes. DJA
"No," she said. "Should I?"
"What? Am I here by myself?" I asked.
"I live in the moment; it's how I savor life."
And then she informed me that her brain wasn't working properly because she had a sun rash on her calves.
I know all about the knee bone connecting to the thigh bone and etc. but that still seemed to be a pretty thin excuse.
After an apparently uneventful walk we arrived at St. Comes d'olt, which is not a different way of saying St. Comes the dolt ---
The spiral steeple St Comes d'olt
Leaving St ComesOlt is the old name of the river Lot. St. Comes is another beautiful medieval town -- this whole region is a well deserved UNESCO World Heritage area. (The trail is still frequently terrible -- eroded and rocky -- but the scenery is stunning).
We stayed in a gite that is part of an Ursuline convent (still active) and the room was one of the best of the walk: modern, very comfortable and with a private bath. (The bathroom had a tiled water resistant floor with a drain in one corner. The shower was just a spray hose attached to the wall in that corner. You were expected to be bright enough not to spray the 220 volt outlet, the light switch or the toilet paper) St. Comes and the room was so nice we decided to stay another day -- alas, no room at the inn so we got a late (9A.M.) start, walking through the heat of the day which we usually tried to avoid.
il. It would be easy to spend days photographing the village. It's justifiably a major regional tourist attraction -- a lot of people, but still tolerable. Our gite was part of a still active monastery adjacent to the church. Again modernized and very comfortable, except for the giant spider that could have leapt on my face while I was sleeping. Our room overlooked the church and a row of reusable stone coffins. On our second night (we stayed two days) we opened our windows and as we lay in bed we were treated to a just loud enough organ concert from the church. And to our surprise we met Robert again. He had been a couple of days ahead of us, but was delayed with food poisoning (something we both escaped) and then planned to spend an extra day in Conques.
The tiles were about 10 inches squareAfter Conques, the trail significantly improved, although it continued (and kept it up for the whole 500 miles) to climb up and down every available hill. At one point near Livinhac the trail veered off the road it was following, climbed a steep rocky bluff, and continued to follow the road, only 100 feet higher. We just kept following the road and were pleased to see that several people behind us followed our lead. On the second half of the walk we were more willing to follow a map and avoid some of the more irritating parts of the trail.
One of the windows, Chapel St. Roch
Our gite in Livenhoc -- top floor, bathroom in a different building. TODAY'S BOOK: Extinction -- Douglas H. Erwin. Erwin writes about the great Permian extinction of 250 million years ago (dw read this and fell asleep -- "That book sounds better than Benadryl" she said), when about 90% of life on earth became extinct in less than a 100,000 years. He writes about what became extinct, and what survived (often, just barely) and what caused it all, with several possibilities. He names many, many different groups (blastoids, crinoids, fusulinid foraminifera, etc) and eras (Changhsingian Stage of the Late Permian, Phanerozoic period) all of which makes reading a slog in places. It's interesting enough that I'll finish it, but it is a book that's easy to put down.
JOKE OF THE DAY: It's a few days late: Originally,Hellmanns mayonnaise was made only in England, but was a great favorite -- wildly popular -- in Mexico. And, as is little known, the Titanic, after New York, was scheduled to stop in Veracruz to deliver to Mexico the 80,000 jars of Hellmanns Mayonnaise it was carrying as cargo. Of course, the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic and so to this day Mexico commemorates (not celebrates) Sinko De Mayo.
What do you call a hen staring at lettuce? Chicken Caesar Salad.
FACTOID OF THE DAY: Warsaw Poland has a mermaid showing her boobs on its Coat of Arms.
And so it goes. DJA
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