Day 6 September 1 Aumont-Aubrac to Nasbinals

26.3km 530m ascent 382m descent 6hr. 25⁰ C

The breakfast wasn’t too terrific, and the man in charge seemed to be watching everyone like a hawk. The three pilgrims from France were with us at breakfast, as well as Bridgette.

We were the first to leave. It was wonderfully cool.

As expected, there was a big climb out of the city, through the woods.

The landscape was different today. The rolling hills were smaller, it was more golden hay than grass, and the soil was a very fine powder, reminiscent of the dig at Bethsaida in Israel.

There was lots of purple heather, and pink fireweed.

The cows along the way definitely appear to be happy, contented cows. Well feed and enjoying the good life outdoors in the pasture.

There was a lot more flat terrain too, reminiscent of the mesada along the Camino in Spain, interspersed with several major climbs. We’re still in the massive central.

We stopped after 16 km at a Gite just before Finleyrols. We got a lemonade, which once again ended up being sprite (this is the last lemonade we’ll ever order in France). We then walked out the long lane into the Gite, and sat at a picnic table in the trees to have our lunch. We were pretty much invisible there.

Bridgette, and many other pilgrims we recognized walked past while we had lunch. Many of them stopped at Fineyrols for their lunch, and we passed them there. Somehow we caught up to Bridgette, and she was a short distance behind us for the rest of the way to Nasbinals.

Macs had indicated that the owner of the hotel indicated in our accommodation, owned three hotels in Nasbinals, fairly strung out, so we called when we got close to see which one we were in. It turned out we were booked in Le Bastide, on the outskirts coming in to Nasbinals. Bridgette had caught up at that point and I tried to explain the situation to her, to no avail. We said our goodbyes, in case we didn’t see each again, as she was finished walking in Nasbinals.

I was a bit mad we weren’t in the hotel in the city centre. We stopped at the hotel going in, which was open and really nice, but no one was there.

We decided to go into town and get some supplies for tomorrow, and a cold drink. We passed Bridgette and Danielle  and Luther at the Hotel Argent, the one in the city. It turned out Bridgette was staying at Le Bastide too!

This ended up being the nicest hotel we have stayed in yet. Very large, modern rooms. In general the hotel rooms in France are very small.

The niece of the owner was on duty at the hotel when we got back. She asked if we wanted a ride to dinner, and we accepted. It was 1.5 km in and out and we had already walked 30 km that day.

She drove us to the restaurant in her mom’s BMW. Nice.

There was no choice for dinner. The waiter said we were getting an egg thing to start, then beef stew and aligot, and cheese for dessert. I said I’d rather have a salad verte , and he said no. The egg thing was good for pilgrims. It was rather good, the yolk was a round ball so had to have been hard boiled, and this yolk was swimming in a sauce composed of cream or milk and partially cooked egg white. Russell thought it was like escargot sauce, so likely had some garlic and spice in it. The beef stew was quite delicious, but very salty (not necessarily a bad thing), and the aligot of course is a regional specialty (potatoes, cream and cheese) that was prepared for pilgrims going to Santiago. I didn’t really like it, but Russell did. I refused the cheese plate and he sort of offered a fruit cup instead, but that didn’t materialize. I take medication for high cholesterol, and the whole dinner was just loaded with it.

The niece told us to ask the owner, her uncle who had mustache,  to let her know when we were ready and she would come get us, but the owner himself drove us back. He was very friendly, and we told him his hotel was the nicest we had stayed in yet.

We never did see Bridgette again. She had passed on the ride to dinner and wasn’t down at breakfast in the morning.

I have been drinking a lot of the local water at Nasbinals. We had run out of bottled water, it was far to go into the city to get some, and the local water was very nice.

It was a great night’s sleep until I woke up with upset stomach at 5:30am.

I have been approaching my back log on the blog pages by doing the daily blog first (while fresh in my mind), and catching up second. This is the earliest blog page I hadn’t gotten done on the right day, so you will get this and all the remaining pages at once. As soon as we have decent internet access.

Also, I write the blog, Russell posts it, and then adds pictures. So depending on the timing, you may have missed the pictures.  You might like to go back to the beginning and look at them.