Day 25 Moissac to Espalais

Another wonderful day on the Camino!!!

Last night was so special! I've referred to our place to stay as the Abbey and I think it is more in affiliation with it. Unlike Conques where we were in the Abbey, last nights place is known as Ancient Carmel.

 It is a large place, we are seeing several familiar faces. The three Hungarians who all started in Budapest at different times but by major coincidence are here, the four beautiful French ladies, Enayet and  Patricia are in town but not here at this place. Our dinner was so wonderful and we all slept so well! We did some laundry by hand but it wasn't totally dry this morning.

We woke up to cereal and hot chocolate and the goodies that Joseph gave us. The volunteers have been exceptionally good to us. They let us leave our bags there and enjoy the day in Moissac. The cloisters are considered the best in the World, the cathedral was very pretty and we studied the typanum more carefully after our Conques education.

There was a gentleman at the cathedral greeting pilgrims, he was so nice and walked us over to the map to put a pin where we live...

Stamped credential, some of us are pulling out book number two right now...

The cloister has 116 columns and 76 capitals most telling stories from the bible.

I have a picture of each one and the brochure describing each if anyone is interested. I can't do the town justice in pictures.

Jacques...

Saint James

 We planned on spending half a day here today before setting out but ended up leaving at three thirty. Since we had access to the kitchen we took advantage of it and had lunch there too! Jacques and Joseph were there to send us off and both praised the kids so much. Everyone is commenting how special they are, how responsible they are. They all are stepping up to the plate and Reichen making dinner and having it served for all six of us last night did not go unnoticed.

I think Joseph, Jacques and I all had tears in our eyes as we said, " Au revoir".

As we were leaving Mark was sitting  out front waiting for the place to open for the new, daily wave of pilgrims coming into town. He is injured and said he will be staying here three days. This might mean we won't see him again though his plans are also Santiago and that is still six weeks away. So far we have met about six people with plans to go on to Santiago though we are the only ones taking the Norte though. I have shared how much I love it though so others might join us. 

Today's walk was almost completely along a canal with three lock systems!

We got to see several boats go through them. We all agreed it was the perfect way to walk when leaving town at three thirty.

If you followed Bronwyn's experience with the automatic cleaning toilet you'll appreciate this photo when we came up on another...

I realize now that I am typing up the day that this day was so layered with experiences, as full as could be!

Since we left so late we were 1.5 kilometers shy of my hopeful destination. We rolled into Espalais at a little after eight. My guidebook said how the church had a nice place to sit out and eat so we hoped to sleep near there but found a better spot at the front of the town. We cowboy camped. This town is so lush, everything is so green and tons of flowers. It really struck me as a beautiful and loved town.

We had to share this fella who we nicknamed Frankenstein ( the Creature vs the doctor) as he was a hodge podge of different cats rolled into one, even his tail was an odd length...my favorite cat to date (here) I'd bring him home if convinced he didn't have a home!

Dogs on the blog, going the opposite direction and not pilgrims ...