Day 24 September 19 Auvillar

4 km 20⁰C

We took advantage of our day off and the late breakfast time to sleep until 9am. We went for breakfast around 10am, and at first thought we had missed it. But he was good with us coming that late. We were definitely the last to show up.

I was very happy that Jim had left us a note before leaving with his e-mail address.

We set out sightseeing at around 10:30am. The Tourist Office was open, the Art exhibit and Art Gallery were open today. The church was open. The shops were mainly open. I guess the lady in the Tourist Office didn’t speak very good English. The only things closed were the Museum we went to yesterday and the Museum of the Waterway.

The Church of Saint Peter in Auvillar was the nicest church, to me, we have been in so far. 

They had the music of the French equivalent to John Michael Talbot playing softly in the background, the decoration was all very austere but moving, and it was a very welcoming space. There was a lovely statue of Christ with his hand inviting you to come and follow him, flanked by statues of a pilgrim, Saint Therese, and Joan of Arc. 

The church space felt like a very holy place, and I got a feeling being there like I felt in the Abbey at Iona. It brought tears to my eyes. It made me think of Carol, going back to Iona, maybe already being there in the Abbey. Blessings to her on her journey.

They had an excellent exhibit of the Chemin de St. Jacques from Le Puy to St. Jean Pied-de-Port, with pictures of some of the major crosses along the Way. I instantly hoped we had captured all of those crosses along the way as well.

We spent a lot of time in there. The literature describes the church as being one of the most beautiful in the diocese of Montauban (not sure how big that might be). Dating from the 12^th century, the destruction from the 100 Years War and the Religious Wars made it necessary to do restoration work in the 15^th and 17^th centuries. We also viewed the Church Treasure in the underground crypt.

The Place du Chateau (the Chateau was destroyed at the time of St. Barthelemy in 1572) provided a magnificent viewpoint of the Garonne valley. 

One feature which really stood out was the two cooling towers of the Goldfech nuclear power station.

The jewel of Auvillar is the Halle – a circular hall magnificently positioned in the triangular square (sounds like an oxymoron). 

The arrangement is very unusual in France. It is a strong elegant structure, supported by 20 Tuscan-style columns, and the roof is covered in pantiles. Inside you can read the names of various cereals and there are two types of measure to be seem, the grain measure built in the original stones from the Middle Ages, and metal measures using the contemporary metric system.

The Clock Tower beside our hotel was built to replace a fortified gate, equipped with a drawbridge at the end of the 17^th century. There are three access gates to the city.

We wandered all around the town. We discussed the selection of sites for days off. There were a number of criteria: the distance and difficulty of the journey between days off; the tourist attraction of the village; and, how nice the accommodation is. We need to add a criteria about the day. Sunday’s and Mondays should be avoided. However, the fact it was a Monday did not, as it turned out, end up being a major disadvantage after all. It was a beautiful medieval town, a very nice hotel, and a well needed rest after a difficult section. It’s nice to have a bathtub once in a while. It’s pretty hard to soak your feet in a shower.

We were not able to connect to the internet all day until after supper. It was just a very poor data rate. We were pleased to be able to finally connect. I sent an e-mail to Jim, and got an e-mail from Kristjan. He had a great time in Colorado, enjoyed the conference, got home okay, and all’s well at home.

Eating at 8pm was just too late. We had a nice supper though. The cold appetizer consisted of a layered eggplant/tomato mousse, cold stewed tomatoes, and a deep fried croquette with something creamy inside. Main course was an individually grilled casserole, similar to shepherd’s pie but with ground pork instead, and ice cream and figs for dessert. Very yummy.

By the way, we have figured out that the ‘elephant’ tree is a Plane Tree.

Also, rather than pastures full of cows, we are now passing fields of grape vines, sunflowers, millet, corn, vegetables, wheat, and orchards of fruit trees.