Last night's gite was a bit warm indoors - it being a large wooden structure and having been closed up for days (or possibly a week or more) - but I slept okay and got up ready for another day's walking. Having spent a couple of days paying a bit more attention to my feet, I was pleased to find them in great shape. I have only one small blister left on my left toe, and apart from that no damage at all, which is surprising considering that in retrospect I was probably pushing myself so hard for err.. what precisely I don't know.
It was a fairly steep learning curve (learning to consider my feet rather than simply press on in all weathers etc) but I'm looking forward to the remainder of my walk confident that I'm now unlikely to develop any deeper problems.
Our walk to Anoye was in complete contrast to the day before. After a good breakfast we set out under overcast skies, with a light breeze and temperatures around 20 degrees. Mmm. Very pleasant walking in such temperatures. Leaving Maubourguet we passed an old mill:
We were entering the departement of Bearne and not only was the architecture changing but now the countryside was changing too. Gentle rolling hills, very green and wooded, flint walls and steep roofs (rooves? Whatever happened to that word?) all contributed to a sense of greater progress:
I imagine the kilometres are starting to add up now, although I confess that I don't seem to be taking a huge amount of interest in totals, only in the distance per day.
There were several picnic tables built along today's route and we took full advantage of them. A number of stops to eat and rest meant that after a very enjoyable day's walk, again full of humour and companionship. Here are my intrepid companions considering the tower of a "palomberie":
François also remarked that now we were in what we presumed to be a wealthier departement, the signs and infrastructure for the camino were much improved. Here's a typical example of the sort of signage we were now seeing:
Another old farm/house, this one dated 1687 above the keystone:
We rolled into Anoye after an enjoyable day's walk around 17:00 to take our beds in the pilgrim gite on the second storey above the town hall:
This is a very nicely run place - very clean with good facilities (not that I've yet found a bad one). There were five other fellow travellers here when we arrived, all of whom we'd seen briefly in Maubourguet the evening before. I gather they've walked from just this side of Toulouse (Leguevin) and seem to be still in the earlier stages of blister acquisition.
The gite has a little shop downstairs which they open at 17:30 and which allowed us to purchase sufficient items for a jolly good spread, including a rather delicious sweet white wine to go with the local paté that Robert chose. They even opened the local church for us so that we could take a look - open churches being the exception rather than the rule:
We're very close to Pau now, so will be there either tomorrow or the day after.
It was a fairly steep learning curve (learning to consider my feet rather than simply press on in all weathers etc) but I'm looking forward to the remainder of my walk confident that I'm now unlikely to develop any deeper problems.
Our walk to Anoye was in complete contrast to the day before. After a good breakfast we set out under overcast skies, with a light breeze and temperatures around 20 degrees. Mmm. Very pleasant walking in such temperatures. Leaving Maubourguet we passed an old mill:
We were entering the departement of Bearne and not only was the architecture changing but now the countryside was changing too. Gentle rolling hills, very green and wooded, flint walls and steep roofs (rooves? Whatever happened to that word?) all contributed to a sense of greater progress:
I imagine the kilometres are starting to add up now, although I confess that I don't seem to be taking a huge amount of interest in totals, only in the distance per day.
There were several picnic tables built along today's route and we took full advantage of them. A number of stops to eat and rest meant that after a very enjoyable day's walk, again full of humour and companionship. Here are my intrepid companions considering the tower of a "palomberie":
François also remarked that now we were in what we presumed to be a wealthier departement, the signs and infrastructure for the camino were much improved. Here's a typical example of the sort of signage we were now seeing:
Another old farm/house, this one dated 1687 above the keystone:
We rolled into Anoye after an enjoyable day's walk around 17:00 to take our beds in the pilgrim gite on the second storey above the town hall:
This is a very nicely run place - very clean with good facilities (not that I've yet found a bad one). There were five other fellow travellers here when we arrived, all of whom we'd seen briefly in Maubourguet the evening before. I gather they've walked from just this side of Toulouse (Leguevin) and seem to be still in the earlier stages of blister acquisition.
The gite has a little shop downstairs which they open at 17:30 and which allowed us to purchase sufficient items for a jolly good spread, including a rather delicious sweet white wine to go with the local paté that Robert chose. They even opened the local church for us so that we could take a look - open churches being the exception rather than the rule:
We're very close to Pau now, so will be there either tomorrow or the day after.
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