Figeac to Gréalou

April 16

As I mentioned earlier, we spent an extra day in Figeac and started walking again on the morning of the 16th. Even with skipping over a few kilometers we are now 3 days behind where we should be so will have to make some decisions about that soon. In the meantime, we left the lovely city of Figeac and walked straight uphill about 150 metres in 3 kilometres. At the top of a hill we found a picnic table beside a huge cross for the war heros so we stopped to enjoy some of the dried apricots, dates and almonds we had purchased at a small store in Figeac.

Another five hours of walking on pavement as we passes beautiful green fields rolling off in all directions, we passed through Cassagnole, Faycelles, Mas de la Croix and finally took a detour into Beduer on the hope that we could find some lunch.  We had enjoyed the intense green fields , the churches and homes alternating with fields of yellow- 'hosts of golden dandelions' comes to mind.

We had been lured by several signs promising us lunch at a restaurant in Beduer called La Taverne, promising all kinds of good things to eat and drink so we had no problem with making the detour when the opportunity came. Up and up the hot street we walked, dreaming of omelettes and salad with a cafe au lait to spur us on our walk. When we arrived, the restaurant was full of locals with no room for any strangers like us. They did sell us some lukewarm coffee with sour milk but that was the extent of it so beware if you are walking this path. At least at this time of the year, we have found that most of the signs on the path that promise coffee and treats do not live up to their promises. Keep nuts and fruit or some food with you at all times. 

We have often been amused at the rigidity of the rules which must be followed around when food is served. Lunch is served between midi (noon) and  2:00. If one arrives at 11:30 or 11:45 one will of course wait politely until midi before ordering. There is no regard for the fact that some people might have a different schedule or be in a hurry. Lunch is served at midi and that is that. If one is hungry, one can go across the street to the patisserie and buy a croissant or even a sandwich and  bring it back to the restaurant where one can buy coffee to have with it.

We had originally planned to stay at Beduer but because of our experience with the restaurant and because it was still only 1:00 or 1:30 we walked on to Gréalou - and what a place that was to stay!

Noalinhac to Figeac

April 14 - We walked from Noalinhac which is at about 350 metres, up to 450 metres, back down to about 100 metres and back up again to something over 200 metres. We had not been able to find and open store to purchase lunch food and had not had breakfast so by the time we had done our ups and downs and covered almost 20 kilometres we were starving. We eventually arrived at Decazeville ready to eat a horse but we had huge tuna, eggs, tomato and lettuce salad instead. Boy it was good. Canadian women with our appetites are only satisfied with small amounts of nuts and dried fruit for so long! Starvation sets in long before one might ordinarily expect:)
So we detoured into Decazeville, an old mining town. This spot was once the sight of the largest opencast mining operation in Europe, although I don't know if it is still active. Certainly the dark scar  looms over the whole town revealing its past. We had planned to stay in Decazeville but because of an early start and a wonderful tuna salad for lunch we were feeling tired but reasonably good.

In spite of the good food, we didn't really like the feel of the part of Decazeville we were in and soon found ourselves headed uphill again. After 2 kilometres go going up a very steep hill, in the heat, on the pavement (as is all too common here in my opinion), we arrived at Saint-Roch which is a spot some historical importance. We were muttering back and forth about what the heck we were doing and noticed that we were standing, gasping, in front of a gîte. Suddenly an angel appeared in the window which he pushed wide open. He stood there with his arms spread wide open and said something cosmic like 'hey do you want some coffee?' Although I think it was in French. And as they say here 'do we want coffee? Is the pope Catholic?'

It turned out that our angel was an American named Ray (now known as our ray of sunshine or ray of hope depending on our mood) who was living in another part of France but doing a turn as a hospitalero at this gîte so the owner could take a break. As we discussed what we wanted to do it became evident that our bodies were still crying out for a rest day so we explored different options for doing that. In the end, we decided to go back to Decazeville and take a train to Figeac, which Ray had discovered we could still do that day. And bless his generous heart, he offered to drive us back down to the train station. So he did and we did. We hopped on the train for the small sum of 3.50€ and went to Figeac, reputed to have an interesting historic section, to have our rest day. And although we were a bit late in the day arriving, we were able to find places at the first spot we tried - Gîte Soleilho. There was only one other person there, an American woman, Linda, who I had actually had some email communication with before we left (thanks to Ivar's forum). All three of us had a quiet and very pleasant time there catching up on emails and washing.

I enjoyed being in the historic part of Figeac. The church is beautiful and, in particular, there is a small chapel for strangers to town to go into for prayer, meditation or just quiet time. It was lovely to look at and very peaceful. We ate dinner out at a restaurant the first night which was tasty but always too much and we decided to cook the second night. Linda, our American friend had some pasta and a bottle of pasta sauce which we added to by purchasing artichokes and sundried tomatoes at an Italian specialty foods shop and a sausage from the butcher. It was really tasty too  although we made far too much and ended up throwing quite a bit away. We did consider leaving it for another pilgrim but the general feeling was that most people would not eat food found in a frig cooked by someone unknown person at some unknown time - so out it went.

Golinhac to Noalinhac

April 12 -
After a relaxed and protein breakfast, unlike the usual bread and confiture, we hopped aboard the delivery truck and headed for Conques which was about 21 kilometres away - a short trek by car but a full day walk for us. We and our packs were dropped in the middle of a beautiful medieval city which was dominated by a huge church. The area surrounding the church was very charming and touristy. The streets were cobblestones and not easy to walk on and there were a fair number of French tourists enjoying the same things we were. We went into a very cramped restaurant and had some lunch and walked around for a bit.

For a variety of reasons we decided to walk on a bit further and went another 9km to Noalinhac. Had we known what that part of the trail was like we probably wouldn't have chosen to walk at that point, but we didn't so we did. We walked up, up and up a rocky path which had a lot of fairly steep drop-offs on one side. This is the kind of thing that I don't really notice as long as it seems safe - which it was - but anyone with vertigo may find difficult. It was a difficult walk and the 9 kilometers seemed to take a long time for us to walk.

 Once we arrived at Noalinhac we had to walk down into the town and get the key to the gîte and then walk back up a hill about 500 metres to the gîte where we were alone all night with no heat but great showers. There was a fireplace which we lit but there was not much wood and the fireplace didn't give any heat anyway. Nevertheless it was pleasant to be alone and our night went peacefully. We ate ham and cheese and tomato sandwiches for dinner and had bowls of warm tea for breakfast. The restaurant had told us they would be open at 7:00 but when we passed by at 7:25 they still weren't open. There went our plans for lunch as well since the little store attached to the restaurant also wasn't open.