Day 19: Limoges

0 km, sun, cloud, rain, cloud. 14°

Just Odds And Sods…

I wouldn’t call this a particularly exciting day, more like a necessary day. There were all the usual chores to be done before getting out to see a little of this city. Boring things like washing my clothes, making sure my gear is all OK, correspondence with a few friends (a good thing) and developing a shopping list.

The sun popped out before I finished that list so I quickly got my boots on, grabbed my day pack and headed out the door. I had thought to see the famous Limoges China museum, but I decided that it wasn’t really calling to me. Annemarie will definitely see it next week and there will be pictures at that time.

I didn’t spend very much time in the cathedral, but I did take a few pictures mostly of the stained glass windows. I was also able to get a nice stamp in my credential and I again filled in more Pilgrim paperwork. They’re really trying to identify how many people pass through different parts of this route and where they’ve started from together with where they plan to finish. Perhaps they are expecting more people to come through here in the future?

And then I headed off to see the market and old town. This is the Halles Centrales market housed in a building made entirely of glass, bricks, and steel, which were apparently required by the Eiffel school.

Inside was pretty good too! I took these pictures to entice Annemarie to come walk this chemin which is so short of open cafés.😂 There is still plenty of great food around here. After all, it’s France! I’m pretty sure that once Annemarie arrives there will be more of this sort of thing in my future.

And then I just wandered back streets.

Lots of buildings dating back to the middle ages. Pretty cool to wander through a bit of history.

The centre of the city complete with tilted buildings.

There was food outside as well. More cheese!

I had read that the train station was something of a marvel, so I decided to walk over and check it out. I used Google maps to guide me there, but unfortunately it led me to a secondary station which was in a bit of a seedier part of the city. I thought this was OK because by then I kind of needed a toilet after all the tea I had enjoyed this morning. However, there were no bathrooms.😑 This forced me to walk rather briskly back across the city to the main train station. Of course, this isn’t an issue when I’m walking between villages and cities. Complete freedom!

I took a few very quick photos as I walked. Note the sky change.

Finally, I spotted the real train station ahead on the other side of some nice fountains that were spraying water very nicely everywhere. Not what I wanted to see at that moment! I hurried past.

Having most fortunately completed my task I waited inside this beautiful station until the heavy rain outside eased off a bit. A few thunderstorms were passing by.

I was pretty pleased that I remembered to put my umbrella in this morning.

Leaving the station I stopped to get groceries for tonight and tomorrow night as well. After walking some 30+ km tomorrow, I’ll arrive in a small village where I couldn’t find any evidence of a grocery store online. Hil texted me to confirm the situation.

I’ll be staying in a bedroom inside someone’s home tomorrow night. This means that I probably won’t have too much access to any cooking equipment, and I planned my food accordingly. I believe there is a tobacconist shop where I should be able to pick up something to drink and maybe some potato chips for happy hour.

I stopped briefly at the tourist information to get another stamp in my credential. As one does, I had a nice conversation with the woman working there. Of course the topic eventually found its way to the unusual weather patterns. She shrugged and said that everyone is waiting for summer to arrive. Me too.😎

I came back to my nice little apartment and spent a couple of hours sorting out accommodations for the few days after Annemarie arrives. She has said that she plans to take over this activity while I write my blog each day. That will be a huge help, but I know she’ll be very tired when she arrives. In order to make her first few days a little easier I tried to make a little dent in this process.

And that’s about it for today. It’s time for me to pull my gear together for tomorrow and then I will actually have time to read for a couple of hours. Bonus!

Bon chemin!

Geoff☀️🦶☔️