Here are a few of Conques, and on the way in to Conques (where the majority of the French stop and go home). And yes, a lot of them are of either the cathedral or the abbey because that's what Conques is famous for. Plus this is a pilgrimage, even if it's not a religious pilgrimage for me.
This last one is the tympan above the cathedral doors. It shows Heaven & Hell, etc. It was explained in detail, but that's the gist of it.
Yes, that is a stained glass window. Or leaded glass, at least. No, it's not original.
The room where I stayed in the abbey was nothing to write home about, but the view was beautiful. I spent an extra day in Conques just letting my blisters heal, walking around barefoot. Here's what I woke up to.
After Conques, I chose to do the Vallée du Célé variant rather than staying on the GR 65 because there is a cave along that route that I wanted to see. It has prehistoric cave paintings, and some interesting natural features. I hadn't heard of a couple of them, like disks or cave pearls. The cave also had a tree root straight down through part of it, and cave bear bones. Pictures are not allowed within the cave, even if you're not using flash, so I bought some postcards instead. But I'll get to those in a minute.
The hike through the Vallée du Célé isn't the easiest, but it was pretty. It started out pretty well, however, winding through fields of grain and hay. I saw this tractor doing something with the hay. I'm not sure, but I think it was turning it to help it dry faster. Because of course everyone knows that you shouldn't bale hay when it's green otherwise it could heat up a lot and catch fire on its own. And that would be bad.
I was the only person in the gîte I stayed in that night, and I also decided to indulge myself a bit, not feeling like cooking a packet of soup. So here's my dinner.
On the way out of town the next day, there was a group of French people taking pictures with the sign for Santiago so I asked them to take one of me.
And here are some other signs I've seen along the way, generally pointing where to go.
This last was from today, indicating a shortcut. It wasn't a huge shortcut (one mile) but that's one mile I didn't have to walk. And since today was already long at about 14 miles I figure that's a very good thing. Guess which two signs are in a regional language rather than French.
The way into the second town on my variant was very pretty, and had some interesting features. There was also the ruins of a former abbey there in Marcilhac that were interesting. It made me wonder what it would have looked like in its hayday.
And finally we get to the town where the cave was.
I know those are horrible pictures of the postcards. I'll have to see about scanning them after I get home and updating this post with better photos of them, but it gets the point across.
There was also a little museum up above the cave, all about the prehistoric peoples. It had examples of their tools and some beads made of bone and other materials, and it also had this interesting statue.
After I left the valley, I decided to skip ahead because I've been walking so much slower than I thought I would and it would have been impossible to get all the way to Santiago at the pace I was going. The hills didn't help. So I took two trains and a bus one day and got ahead of schedule a bit, going from Cahors to a town called Aire-sur-l'Adour. Since then I've been walking the same stages as an older German man from Oberhausen. His name is Ernst and he speaks no English or French, just German. So I've been speaking (ha!) German for a few days now. Or at least I've been trying. I've managed okay, but by no means do I understand much of what he says. Translating can be very interesting.
I have managed to increase my daily miles, or rather kilometers. Instead of 15-20 I'm now doing 20-25. It's been okay, since the terrain isn't quite so bad even if there are still hills and now I can see the Pyrenees. I'm one day away from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, the regular starting point for many pilgrims, including most Americans. Here are some photos from the past few days (as well as some left of the valley), which by no means do the landscape justice.
The last few are all from today, and the very last one is the town where I'm staying tonight. It's been really nice. All of us at the gîte tonight had dinner together, with some buying groceries and others cooking and cleaning. We all contributed to the cost of the meal, which was a pretty good price at 4,50€.
I'm in the same room with a few ladies I met a couple of days after I met Ernst. We've been kind of hanging out together, as we've ended up in the same place most nights since we met.
From left to right you have Janine, Marie-France, Ernst, me (of course) and Marie. They've all been wonderful. And the ladies have helped make me (and my pack) famous. I met a girl today who'd heard of me from them, as well as from an Australian couple I met in Conques. Basically, it's the fact that my pack is so heavy and yet I'm walking with it. And I'm managing okay, but I'm going to see what I can get rid of tomorrow and send back home.
And to finish teh update, I've now had three days when it's rained. The first two weren't so bad, but it rained all day yesterday. The poncho/raincoat I have that fits over my pack isn't quite big enough to close me in to it as well, so I got wet pretty early on. I got more wet when I slipped on a small bridge and fell flat on my face. And I got more wet still when it started pouring toward the end of the day and my shorts and panties were wet through, and rain started seeping into my hiking boots from the top. Especially when I had to stop and retie my laces. The last hour or so was very miserable as my boots became waterlogged and I could feel the rain squishing around my feet as I walked. When I finally got to the gîte and took my boots off, I poured water out of them. Literally. More than once, because more came out after I took out the insoles. And my boots started steaming from the heat left over from my feet, which were far warmer than the air.
Anyway, it's supposed to rain again tonight, and I'd better go bring in my socks if I don't want them to get all soaked.
