Stage Twelve: Eglise Saint Roch to Figeac (Aug 22)

The rest day was lovely, and we were really lazy! The owner of the gite lived next door to the gite so we felt we had the home to ourselves.

Another wonderful dinner was had last night and the only other occupants were a French couple hiking a few days with their son who was 22 and in college studying Philosophy, and another female hiker who came in later right about supper time. The gite owner has a Rottweiler named Jade who was a real sweetheart pie!  

I’ve done something I’ve never done before and that was to book most of our stages ahead of time.  Had we not we would have had to camp as everywhere is “ complete” the term used when they are “full”. We were able to take an unexpected rest day and not ruin our booking because I removed a side trip to Racamadour, a place we went five years ago. It was not a part of our pilgrimage and was the only time we took transportation to a place. A train took us the forty minute journey and brought us back to where we got on it in Figeac. By removing that variant it opened up that night. We did the right thing, I personally think every pilgrim should try to go there, and we have, so nothing lost I don’t think. I remembered having to get up before 0500 in Racamadour just to take down hammocks and walk through the woods to the train station, and that’s far from a “rest day”, so we were good!  

Today was a difficult hike because there was no place to stop and get a drink, nothing was open being a Sunday.  We were slightly prepared for this and considered the chances but each time we approached anything that resembled a community our hopes did peak. Arriving to Figeac was like last time, exciting! The river runs through it and a bridge takes you to the city. We had no accommodation and last time camped outside of town, before town. It was nice but a long walk to town. We grabbed drinks, planned our dinner at the same spot as last time and I left Bronwyn to run across the bridge and look for accommodation.  Lucked out to get us in a nice hotel! Lovely bed linens, cozy atmosphere and we felt spoiled! We will sleep in because tomorrow’s hike is not really long and takes us on, in my opinion, the best part of the Le Puy route IF you take it, the Cele Valley, which is a beautiful variant along the Lot river and we are so excited!!!