A Nice Day for a Walk

Sunday, September 27th, Rest day 4, Moissac

The walls in France are paper thin. Despite that, I slept fairly well after everyone went to sleep. I didn’t use ear plugs because today was a rest day, and it didn’t matter that much. Using ear plugs irritates and hurts my ears, so I only use them when I absolutely have to.

I slept very well, though I did have a rather nasty and long coughing fit during the night.

I woke up to have breakfast with everyone else, but then I basically went back to bed. It was noisy for a while, so I didn’t really sleep till later in the morning, but it was very nice. My second nap of the trip. Yesterday was the General Women’s Conference, so I listened to the talks between napping. Conference is next week, so I’m planning on taking a break for that as well.

I got up around noon and headed out to explore the town a bit.  I went and took more pictures of the Abbey church.  I think it’s called St. Peter’s Abbey.

I had lunch at the Restaurant de L’abbaye. It’s kind of fun ordering things that you don’t really know what it will be like. For my first course I chose the salade de l’abbaye, which said it had lettuce, tomatoes and gizzards. From the description you can never tell how many of each thing there will be. You would think it would be a mostly lettuce with some tomatoes and a few gizzards thrown in. It was pretty much all gizzards, with two tomatoes, and a few pieces of lettuce.

I don’t know if it’s just coincidence, or if it’s the region, but this salad, and the salad last night was basically all oil with very little vinegar. It was a little difficult to eat. The gizzards were actually ok.

The main course was some steak, and it was much rarer than I’d wanted it to be. It was so rare it was difficult to cut and difficult to poke with a fork.

Dessert was a nice chocolate mousse.

I wandered around intending to look for some yogurt, but I completely forgot. I went to the other church I could find, but it was closed.

I headed back to the abbey church to take a tour of the cloister. On my way there, someone called to me from another restaurant, and it was Tanya and Peter again! They said today was their last day and they were going to end their walk here because of the train station. It’s sad that I won’t see them anymore. They’re one of the last early people. I’m still hoping I’ll catch up with Anick at some point, but you never know. It was nice to see them and have a bit a closure as well.

I went to see the cloister, which was very nice, and very similar to the one in Le Puy. This one claims to be the oldest cloister in the world. Apparently one also cannot take too many pictures of a cloister.

By this time it was about 3 pm, and I decided to go back to my room and start trying to figure out my bookings for the week. Ann was kind enough to help me book through Friday. I had one more day picked out, but she was done. Saturday and Sunday I want to stay in one place again, like I did this week. The problem is, the distances aren’t great, and in order to end in a bigger city, I had to have a few big days. I’m going 170k in 6 days. Hopefully I’m up for it. I think I will be. I will be ready for the break, though. I booked a couple of gîtes and a couple of chambres.

I hope I remember to stop at an ATM on the way out of town.

As I’ve been writing stuff up, I could hear the Americans arriving outside. It is a little odd not only to hear English, but to hear American accents. Dinner should be interesting.

Dinner was interesting! It was a group of people who were either artists associated with a small women’s college in Virginia, or people on the board. They have a small artist’s colony in Auvillar, so that’s why they’re in the area. They are also walking for a few days. The entire dinner group, except for the hosts, was American. Not quite what I’m used to! I did a lot more talking than I have been.

Apparently there is a lunar eclipse with a harvest moon tonight, so some of them are planning on getting up to see it. I’m not setting an alarm, but I wouldn’t be upset if I woke up and happened to see it. I have two big days starting out a big week, so I need to sleep. It’s also going to be hot tomorrow.

I think dinner tonight was better than last night. We had the same starters with toast, then a very nice soup, then a yummy sausage pasta thing with a salad, and another fruit and cake dessert.