Day 27 September 22 Lectoure to Romieu

22.9 km 431 ascent 438 descent 4:25 hr. 26⁰C

For such a lovely hotel it was a bit of a minimal dinner. We noticed the staff were all really thin, probably from lack of starch. There was no pasta or potatoes component at all. In addition, the room wasn’t all that great. It was fairly small, which wasn’t that big of a deal, but it had a lack of air – making it very stuffy. There was only one window, and after the experience with the bat, I’m not too keen on having the window wide open. I had a bit of a headache in the morning.

The breakfast was pretty good. At least they had granola. Some fresh fruit would have been nice. We had some bananas and a grapefruit but felt self-conscious about pulling them out of our backpack and using them to enhance our breakfast. We have decided not to worry about that anymore. If we don’t like their breakfast we will augment it as we please. Hey, it’s our Camino! Bread, jam, and croissants really doesn’t give you the start you need to get going in the morning.

We made our way down out of the fortified hill top town of Lectoure. It was tricky with the cars speeding by on the narrow streets. We met a pilgrim walking out that passed us quickly and didn’t really give us the time of day. I said that perhaps he was shy. Often people that are shy come across as very anti-social. We passed the Clarinet House

, and the Fountain of Diane 

which we didn’t go to yesterday. Both have interesting stories, but I’ve thrown out the tourist info from Lectoure and have no internet access.

At the bottom we had a really nice view of the cathedral and the town. 

thetalked about how these hilltop, fortified towns did great until the Romans figured out the strategy of just surrounding the town down below and starving them out.

We passed a processing plant at the base of Lectoure where we don’t know what they were doing, but we surmised they were processing sunflowers. We also passed the unfriendly pilgrim, who appeared to be eating his breakfast and washing his utensils in the dew of the grass. It seemed a bit odd.

We passed massive fields of sunflowers, which are being harvested now, corn, and soybeans. Not too many grapes. The interesting thing about the sunflowers is, when they are pretty yellow flowers, with their faces facing you as you walk, they are very cheerful, welcoming, and pretty. Now, the leaves are all withered and brown, and the plants are rather dead looking. It makes you realize that all thing have a time and a season. Although the sunflowers are withered, now is when they are most valuable. 

It’s like people. When you’re young, you’re pretty and idealistic, then when you get old and whizzened up, you have a lot of wisdom. I really wish I knew what I know now when I was young. I might have too, if I’d listened to older people telling me the truth about life, but I just ignored them. Hindsight is 20/20. We roll through life thinking we know everything, but wisdom only comes when you realize that you know nothing.

I haven’t mentioned it, but we do still pass the odd field of cows. Not many, but as before every time we do pass cows, there are calves. The one thing we have noticed lately that is very different, is that the cows in the field aren’t all oriented in the same direction. What is going on here?

We also had a good view of the steam from the nuclear power plant cooling towers all day. We got a cool picture of the steam exhaust bracketed by two wind turbines. 

Two solitudes.

We passed the French couple again we had passed yesterday. We were on a fairly steep climb. The gentleman really looked like he was on the verge of having a heart attack. He was wheezing and looked very unhealthy. I hope he makes it. I had a vision of a cross along the Camino, dedicated to him.

We went through a lovely village, Marsolan, with a lovely church and a number of crosses each topped by a rooster. 

While at the church, we met the French couple and the (unfriendly) pilgrim that passed us in Lectoure from this morning. It was the only village on route today with a store/restaurant and we got a coffee and a decadent myrtille (like blueberries) cupcake (muffin) covered in fondant and sprinkled with chocolate and caramel chips. I expect there is a lady in Marsolan that enjoys making fancy cupcakes. It was a delicious and unexpected treat! The unfriendly pilgrim was ahead of us at the epicerie and bought 2 slices of ham and a tomato (possibly some bread and other items) and left quickly. That seemed just too self-denying.

We are definitely in the plain of Gers now. We kept wondering why we were going to Romieu, this amounts to doing two sides of an equilateral triangle to get to Condom, which is where we go tomorrow. As we approached Romieu, I thought perhaps it was because we pilgrim’s hadn’t climbed enough today. Now it was very up and down. More likely it is because: a) Romieu is a very lovely medieval town with a very impressive church and cloister; and/or b) there is no way to get directly from Lectoure to Condom without walking along a very busy highway.

It was a very pleasant walk today, except a lot of it was along roads or hard packed trails. This was causing the bursitis in my left foot a lot of trouble. Things were going sort of okay anyway, right up until I twisted my right knee on an unleveled slope. Climbing up hurt my knee, descending hurt my heel. At least it wasn’t too much farther. Coming in to the village we passed Coursiana Botanical Gardens, which itself would be a major tourist draw. If I hadn’t been hobbling along with a sore foot and knee, it would have been a lovely place to visit (7 euros each). We also passed the unfriendly pilgrim from this morning, sitting in a park at a picnic table with his boots, socks, and shirt off, having his lunch.

We got to Romieu at 1pm, when all the stores were closed, but that was okay because we had carried our lunch. The two restaurants in the village were open, so we got some cold drinks. While sitting at the restaurant the (shy?) pilgrim arrived, all smiles and came over to talk to us as if we were kindred spirits! He said he was carrying on to Condom today, and headed off in the wrong direction (I knew this because I had been sitting there studying the map very carefully). A while later he returned bobbing his head back and forth, going the right way this time. What a change in disposition. I started to wonder if there were really two different pilgrims involved. Perhaps the pilgrim we passed at the bottom of Lectoure was not the same pilgrim as the one who passed us going through Lectoure. They looked the same. I decided that must be what was going on.

After we finished our drinks, we went to sit on some public benches right across from the restaurants and I ate lunch (Russell didn’t because he is trying to lose weight). Next we toured the Cloister and St. Pierre Collegiate Church. 

It was really magnificent. They were built between 1313 and 1418 by Cardinal Arnaud d’Aux de Lescout as a burial place for his family. He and his three nephews are buried there. First, I doubt they are his ‘nephews’, and why not bury his sister, the mother of these ‘nephews’ there too? Arnaud was cousin to Pope Clement the V, who seems to be behind a lot of what happened church wise a,long the Camino.

On the way out of the Collegiate, we met the ladies from France again, who are going home to Lyon tomorrow. They get a cab very early to Toulouse tomorrow morning, then take the train to Lyon.

We also went and checked out the wooden statue of a pilgrim along the GR65 out of Romieu.

Romieu is known as the city of cats, made famous by Angeline. During the middle ages there was a famine and the people began eating the cats of the village. Angeline hid two cats, and saved the village from famine due to rats eating all the crops with her cats and their offspring. There are cat statues all over the city, as well as lots of cats!

We amused ourselves until around 3:40pm in Romieu and then headed to our lodging, 1.5km from the GR65. We got there around 4pm.

This is a really lovely place. We have an entire house to ourselves. I went for a swim in the lovely pool. 

There is a washing machine in the kitchen we used to wash our laundry, but there is no wifi. I worked on the blog but Russell couldn’t post it, or add pictures to our previous postings.

The owner drove us to and from dinner in Romieu. We saw the French ladies and the French couple at the restaurant. Very nice meal. A cold buffet for appetizer, with quiche, salmon loaf, taboulie, and other items; I had salmon and Russell had duck with mushroom sauce, but the duck you would swear tasted like steak; and a coconut, etc. pie for dessert. Very lovely dinner. The waitress was from New Jersey, but was an army brat so had moved all over as a child, ending up in Paris, and now working in Romieu. There was also four ladies at a table there, who seemed to be having a great time. One of them, I’m sure, was wearing a wig. Perhaps she had cancer treatments recently?

The husband picked us up and brought us back to our house to sleep.