Hotel Peyrade finally let us in at almost 3:00pm yesterday. Particularly annoying since they are a family hotel and on the premises anyway. Many people waiting. Nice big room, sterile, but functional. Managed to find a local massage therapist and get a nice massage. She was pretty sharp and picked up on a few things, 18 years experience. Not much going on in the town, hotel came up with a decent dinner of Tuna Steak. Shared table with Manfred and Thomas, two Germans who have been hiking various camino sections for years. They are scheduled to be at the same Gite that I am tonight. Nice walk today, Gite, unfortunately is way far from the town. Arrived around 1:00pm, madame informed me that there was nothing to eat and nothing near, and by the way if you walk to town the restaurants will be closed because it is after 2:00pm. Grocery store of course doesn’t open till 3:00pm. I was then treated to a lecture about how unreasonable it would be to expect a restaurant to serve food after 2:00pm, this is not Paris! She does apparently plan to serve dinner. Decided to walk to town, since there was nothing doing at the gite. After much searching found a lovely outdoor cafe where the owner told me to go get some charcuterie and she would provide the wine. So far that is working, but now I have to get the 2.5km back to the gite, will try for a taxi or a ride from someone.

The gite de La Fontaine ended up being a great place, I was in a gypsy wagon called a “Roulette” and it was cozy and comfortable. Nice communal dinner with hosts who had been pilgrims and decided to run a gite. They raise almost all the food themselves. Very nice what they have created. Today was a much shorter walk, which was nice and the weather was beautiful. Started out going up to a ridge type thing where you could see clouds and terrain below on both sides. A series of backroads and pathways eventually led to a downhill into Cajarac. This is listed as a city of only 1,000 people but seems quite a bit bigger. Lots of building a clear town center and a few restaurants etc. Of course the assigned hotel was closed on arrival, not open till 3:00pm so took my pack and headed into town to find some lunch. Lovely pork ribs and a salad worked out well.

Figeac was a very nice town, and I was booked at quite a nice restaurant for dinner. Seafood mix and everything was fresh and perfectly cooked. Hotel was comfortable and got a good nights sleep. The hotel owner, Slyvie, went to the trouble of getting some GF rolls for me for breakfast so that was nice. Got started around 8:45am and what was supposed to be a fairly level day was anything but. After 20 minutes or so outside of Figeac there was a climb of about 1,000 ft, that definitely got me warmed up. Otherwise this rolling countryside is pleasant, but deceptively high energy to walk, you are always going up or going down, even if not huge climbs or descents. Ended up that the pre booked, Gite, Gite de La Fontaine and was assigned a lovely gypsy type caravan as my quarters. This place is really rural with nothing nearby. Owners seem to be former pilgrims themselves.

I had quite the evening experience in Livinhac last night, since the Gite doesn’t do food they had me booked into the only restaurant/Bar in town. Turned out to have lots of friendly locals and resident dog and most of the owner’s family waiting tables etc. Good time was had by all. After a restless night, decided to shorten the day today, scheduled for 30km, which is a long day, but not a good call since it was forecast to rain all day. Got a taxi to run me 10km down the road, which turned it into a mere 20km/12.5kmile day. It did in fact rain almost the whole time, and about 6 hours later, I arrived in Figeac. My hip was not particularly bothering me, so lets hope that was an unusual occurrence. Off to find something, to eat, but not possible as it is 4:00pm and apparently no restaurant and no person is allowed to eat anything other than pastries at that hour. Eventually a few slices of ham from a charcuterie take the edge off until dinner at 7:00pm. Figeac has a population of about 10,000 people so it’s about five times bigger than where I was last night.

A pleasant evening in Conques, simple dinner provided, sausage and Aligot. Imagine mash potatoes and then mix in enough cheese that they are sticky, like 50/50 and that’s Aligot. After dinner over to the church for a pilgrim blessing, didn’t have the energy to stay for the lecture on the front piece again and the organ concert, but did get my first decent night of sleep since arriving. Up at 7:00am, sort of breakfast, since I can’t eat the pastries, it was a banana and some applesauce and then off on the way. Very steep downhill out of Conques, which is in kind of in a valley, then up the other side, also very steep slippery wet rocks. Weather was quite chilly but warmed up nicely and no rain, cleared up to outright sunny so that was a relief. A few hours in there was a place for coffee that also sold sausage and cheese so I was able to get some snack food. Conques had nothing available…Kept on pluggging but for some reason my right hip really started aching half way through the afternoon, not sure where that came from, but continued slowly and eventually made it my gite. Nice place, nice owner, but way at the bottom of town and my included dinner is way at the top of town. Ughh, just what you don’t want to do after walking 14+miles is walk another mile uphill to dinner. Oh well, at least there is dinner!

Today started very early, with a 5:20am wake up, then a taxi to Orly, flat rate 32 euros plus 7 euro dispatch fee. Just as well it was prearranged as all cabs were booked this morning due to the big strike. Got checked in in short order and through security at Orly fairly rapidly, although the French have still not grasped that an X-ray machine allows you to see through things and they don’t need to be in a clear bag…. Plane was a small regional jet, and it was late to arrive and late to leave, but flight time was only one hour, so we ended up right on time. My arranged taxi from Conques was waiting for me and we zipped through the rain back to the hotel I stayed in last time I was here. Room of course not ready and off and on raining and chilly outside. Eventually got my room, but not without the luggage transport people stopping by and mistakenly attempting to transport my suitcase to the next stop a day early. Caught them before they left town and got it back. Weather seems to be clearing so hopefully tomorrow won’t be too wet.

Today was not raining! Big improvement. After the usual fitful jetlag night, headed to NoGlu for breakfast and the bussed over to Isle St. Louis to pick up my hiking poles from Atsu and John. Parked those back at the hotel and then hopped up bus up to the upper Marais and tracked down Adrian Leeds for a brief chat at her favorite cafe. She was super busy, but at least we made contact. Sometime during lunch, it turned out that the scheduled strike for Thursday was going to cancel all trains in the direction I needed to go. Normally, I would just delay for a day, but “Walk The Camino” has 11 nights of hotels and meals and bag transport booked for me, and trying to shift all of this is kind of a non starter. The upshot after much back and forth on What’s app with them in Scotland was the suggestion to fly to Rodez and taxi to Conques from there. So, did find a flight, expensive compared to the trains 28 euros versus 230euros for the flight, but looks promising. I was up Thursday morning at 5:30am and at Orly by 6:30am. Much nicer and smaller than CDG. Anyway, checked in, through security and waiting for boarding to start. Did have to, god forbid, check a bag, but it’s a small airplane and had my poles and Swiss Army knife. Luckily now have an AirTag in there and it is a non stop flight. Weather in Conques not at all promising with high percentage of rain forecast for the rest of the day and tomorrow. If any of you are ever thinking of traveling without a working cell phone, give up that thought right away. I was able to book my flight and pay on my phone, cancel the train and get a refund, and, haven’t quite finished filing a travel interruption claim with Worldnomads, with luck they will absorb the cost of the airfare.

Made it back to Paris with only minor hassles. Delta non-stop was good, and they didn’t try to take away my oversized “personal” item. Unfortunately, no gate, so bussed in to the terminal and then a very long line and wait to get passport stamped. 2 hours from touchdown I was walking over to the RER station, for the train into Paris. I’d already charged up my Navigo Decouverte pass so didn’t have to deal with ticket line. Weather was surprisingly chilly and also rainy with off an on heavy rainfall. Hotel room not ready as usual, but left bags and off to NoGlu for breakfast. Then coffee with Tom and Maj Earle. Tom was my 8th grade English teacher and we built his house together the summer after my freshmen year of college. Room still not ready, so 6 oysters later and it was…. Shower and shave has a remarkable effect after a long trip! Meet up with some Facebook French group friends and then dinner with Tom and Maj at Fish La Boisonnerie right across from my hotel. Excellent Crozes-Hermitage and lamb and pork. Usual restless jet lagged night but doing well overall.

As many of you know, to re enter the USA at this point you need a covid test taken one day before your flight. I brought the BINAX now AG card proctored tests for us, and took mine more or less without incident the morning before departure, L took hers as well and we were good to go. Out the door at 6:15am, taxi stand a block from the apartment and, wow out at the gates within about 30 minutes of arrival at CDG, this is record time. AirFrance lounge would not admit me even with my fancy new AMEX card, so coffee in the terminal. Luckily I knew our documents needed to be verified at the desk before boarding, mine were fine, but L apparently hadn’t updated her computer or phone to Paris time and her test then showed 04/26, since Hawaii is 12hrs earlier. In spite of explaining that it was just a time zone issue the gate agent was having none of it. Panicked calls (4!) to BINAX ensued with long holds and then various redirects and elevations to Level 3 etc. The other option would have been to completely exit to the lobby and get tested at the pharmacy pre security, this was not going to work time wise. (Seems a little weird not to have some kind of testing option post security, but CDG is not one of the worlds better airports). About 10 minutes before boarding, the email finally came through with the test result shown in Universal Time, UTC, which then showed the date of the 27th, which was acceptable to the gate agent. This kind of thing is yet another reason that you need a working cell phone! A hair raising and nerve wracking departure, but we made it. Lots of empty seats, we were in economy comfort, so easy if long flight at 9 hours 45 minutes. Global entry came through for us and we sailed out the door and into a Lyft all in about 15 minutes. Anyway after looking like there was no way we were going to be on that flight, it came through in the end. Here’s some food pictures from the final dinner, at Le Petite Marche, near Pl. des Voges.

POST SCRIPT: Came down with Covid Saturday after flying back on Friday, so glad it waited till I was home! Mild case and tested negative within 6 days.

Did some good walking around yesterday and today, with the morning spent doing the Binax now covid tests in preparation for departure tomorrow. Here are pictures from Isle Aux Cygnes, in the Seine, from Eglise St. Sulpice and from the top of the Montparnasse tower.