Day 25 September 20 Auvillar to Miradoux

18.7km 464 ascent 344 descent 4:30 hr. 28⁰C

Please note that yesterday's Blog was incomplete when posted.

I wonder about the necessity of leaving early when we have a short day. It’s not too hot now, we often can’t get into our lodging until 2:30pm and/or the bags don’t arrive until after then anyway. There is a constraint that we have to have our bags down by 8am, but we could go to breakfast at 8am and be rather leisurely about the whole thing. On the other hand, the stores close at 12:30pm until around 2:30 or 3pm, so that can be an issue too.I forgot to mention that yesterday we kept seeing these large transport trucks, with two trailers, full of some fresh produce, going through Auvillar. At dinner we asked the fellow what they were hauling, and he said tomatoes. These trucks seemed to be rolling through town all night. I guess you pick tomatoes and ship them to the processing plant when they are ripe! We are talking tons of tomatoes per trailer.

We went down for breakfast at 7:30 am, when it started. We were alone except for a fellow biking along the Camino. He said he does 60 to 70km per day. He has two other companions travelling with him, one of whom showed up just before we left.

Even though Auvillar was a hill top town, the Way was basically uphill throughout the day. Miradoux is about 100 meters higher in elevation than Auvillar.

It was a lovely walk as always. The scenery is really beautiful, and we are often on ridges or hill tops with lovely views. All day we could see the two cooling towers of the nuclear power station, and Russell said we were going to spend today just walking past them.

St-Antoine was a lovely village with a lovely church with statues that must have been made by the same sculptor that did the statues at the Church of Saint Peter in Auvillar. We stopped and had a Pierrier at the bar, and ate our grapefruit. Grapefruit is an excellent pilgrim snack.

Shortly after St-Antoine, the bikers passed us by, saying ‘hey Canadians’. It must be very challenging riding your bike along the Camino. It’s hard enough to walk up all those hills.

Flamarens was also a lovely hill top village. It had a medieval church that had suffered major damage during the 100 Years War, and they had a drive to collect funds to restore the church.

We wandered through, and it was very heavily damaged, just a few walls standing. 

You could tell it had been glorious in its day. We wondered, with all the ancient churches around that are suffering from lack of funds to maintain, why restore this one?

Our guide said Flamarens was 2km from Miradoux. We had brought no lunch, thinking we would get there before the stores closed. A while after leaving Flamarens we saw a GR65 type sign saying 4 km to Miradoux. What! It was 11:30am. Onward ho, up the big hill.

We got to a Casino at about 12:20pm and bought some supplies for lunch, including a small melon. Russell was planning to eat something in his suitcase. I got a piece of pizza at a boulangerie.

We got to our hotel at about 12:30pm. The fellow said the room wouldn’t be ready until 2:30pm, our bags weren’t there and he didn’t expect they would arrive before 2:30pm. He had a garden, and asked if we would like to wait to there, we said that would be lovely. He walked us over to the garden, past a public washroom and large sink, which was locked. He rearranged some chaise lounges for us and left. It was a lovely garden, with a table and chairs, several levels, trees, shrubs and flowers, and the chaise lounges.

Russell went back to the casino, which was still open, for some cold drinks, and we shared the pizza and ate the whole melon.  It was too bad we didn’t have any devices, but the 2 hours passed quickly and pleasantly in the garden.

I visited the church, which was quite lovely, we put everything back the way it was and locked the garden gate, and headed over to our lodging at around 2:30pm.

The hotel is in an 18^th century mansion. It is gorgeous inside here. Our room is palatially large with a shower that has a radio, a heater lamp, and massage jets. Our host said our hotel tomorrow in Lectoure is really nice. Compared to this?

Their son is here on vacation because their daughter just had a baby. The son works in Montreal, in marketing. I asked why he went there, and he said to travel and see the world. Lack of job opportunities in France may have had something to do with it too.

Because the son is here visiting, our hosts made reservations for us for dinner in the town. I think there is only one restaurant. It was a communal table for all the pilgrim’s in town. There was a beet (and tuna we think) salad, with hard boiled eggs and ham to start, a casserole of white beans, cabbage, beef, ham, and sausage for the main, and fruit – primarily the owner’s grapes – for dessert. Very substantial and filling. I tried not to eat too much. Almost everyone else was French, except the one fellow sitting beside me, who was from Montreal and spoke pretty good English. It was okay, but I find trying to understand people in a language I don’t speak, and making small talk to people I don’t know very tiring. I was happy to come back to our lovely room and relax.