Day 9: Saint-Come-d’Olt to Estaing. 25.03km
I woke up at the convent at about 6:30, quickly (and I hope quietly) packed my stuff up and slipped out of the dorm and down to breakfast. There was a whole busload (or maybe two busloads) of retired French people who had been at dinner last night and they were all up early. I got some breakfast then went back to the room. Everyone had woken up and were starting to pack up when I returned. I checked my damp clothes, and thankfully it was only my socks that were still wet, so I hung them on the outside of my pack to maybe dry.
I said goodbye to half of them – only Bea, Evan and a new girl who must have come later and I hadn’t met were continuing on today. The other three were leaving the camino. I then walked into town.
I’d got up early so I could explore Saint-Come. This was one of the Les Plus Beaux Villages of France; I’ve visited many of them before and they were all so lovely so I wanted enough time to explore. I wandered around, and found a boulangerie. I went in to buy some food and I must have sighed as I was packing the food in my backpack, because the lady who’d served me was walking back inside when she patted me on the back and wished me bon chance (good luck). I wandered around the village; it was walled with these archways leading outside, and the church had this amazing spire – twisted in maybe two or three twists. Very interesting. The town was also very pretty, and would be lovely in the sunshine. There was a pilgrim sleeping in the picnic area near the loos too which was a little weird but at least there was shelter. Maybe they didn’t book accommodation for the night and everywhere was full.
I already had my poncho on and it was looking to be another wet day. I was well over the weather, it was ruining what was supposed to be the best few days of the camino with its grey skies and relentless damp! I made my way out of the town and across the Lot river and out into the parklands along the river. The view back over to Saint-Come was really nice.
There was quite a lot of countryside walking which was nice, but my knee was really giving me problems. There was a high- and a low-level variant on this one and I was planning on doing the low-level one but I got called over by a group of pilgrims who thought I was going the wrong way. I couldn’t explain to them that I was going the low-level one in French, but it turned out that one of them was this French-American woman who I could talk to. She told me that her gite host had said that the high-level one wasn’t too hard. So….. up I went.
The uphills weren’t the issue and it was really nice countryside. There was this old stone barn in the fields which looked very dramatic, and the views were ok. But the downhills were hard work. There was also a good view out to an old castle on a hill – not much was left other than a pile of rocks but it was rather dramatic.
I ate my last stroopwaffel on the way, then realised we were walking into a quarry which was SO STEEP to climb over! There was a view over the countryside below, but it was hard work and the misty rain was pretty miserable.
I popped out close to the town of Espalion near this very nice orange-coloured church. The weather was picking up and it was starting to get sunny which was so welcome after the damping rain. I had a look inside the church then walked along the Lot again towards Espalion. The views were pretty good, as you can see!
I even got close to the castle on the hill, which was just by Espalion. I didn’t have the energy to go up there though, sadly.
I wandered through town, got a sandwich, picked up some cash from an ATM, then visited the church, where I bumped into Bea. Her knee was doing better today which was nice to hear.
I started on the path out of town and there was a table and chairs set up along the river so I stopped to eat my sandwich. Two other pilgrims asked if they could sit with me and that was nice, they could speak some English. Then I kept on, and it started raining again so out came the poncho again.
We had to cross a few roads getting out of Espalion and I was looking to see if there were any shortcuts, I was over it today – my knee was hurting and it was a 25km day. But then FOMO kicked in and I thought I should go the full way. I’m glad I did because we went through a few little hamlets with lovely old churches, but of course the rain started again with a vengeance and it was hammering down.
Somewhere in the woods I ended up being overtaken by these three people, two women and a man. The couple was from the Netherlands, and the other woman was from Denmark. Her name was Ellen and I ended up walking with her for quite a while, though she was a little too fast for me.
The loveliest little hamlet came just before Estaing. I had been so looking forward to getting to Estaing both for a rest and because I’ve been there before and it was beautiful that the little village of Verrieres just took me by surprise. It was so gorgeous, flowers everywhere, stone houses, and a stunning but tiny church.
We then ended up walking along a road but the path cut corners, so instead of going along the road and curving around a hill, we had to walk over the hill.
We came into Estaing from the other side of the Lot river. It was grey and rainy but the town was as beautiful as I remembered it. I’d been telling everyone for days that Estaing was worth pushing on for and it didn’t let me down.
But thankfully the gite was nearby. We went in and Marie was the host and spoke great English. Ellen, the Danish lady, and I shared a room and we also decided to share the washing machine too. I needed to wash my clothes and they were unlikely to dry in this weather so it was a good system. I paid her back by buying her food a few days later at a cafe.
Dinner that night was interesting. The host made us go around the table to remember everyone’s name, and I was the last person which made it very difficult as I had to remember every single person. There was a French lady named Aurora there, but every time she said her name, I couldn’t work out what she was saying. The whole thing was very difficult, both with my Australian accent and trying to pronounce unfamiliar names, and with trying to understand the names in the first place!
We had chilli con carne that night. It was nice but being French, not spicy at all.
Gite etape Saint-Christophe. 8/10. Great shower. Dinner was good, and I appreciated the English-speaking host.
