Day 25: Stage 20: Saint-Astier

23 km, Cloud, rain and sun. 16°

And Then There Were Two!

It didn’t take very long for things to change following Annemarie’s arrival!

Quite suddenly, there was dinner out at a nice restaurant called Fred’s!

And this morning breakfast was also sit down style in a bakery no less! This was the first time on my walk that this has even been available. I try explaining this to Annemarie, but I don’t think she really believes me.😂

As you can imagine, France has been overwhelmed by the preparations for the upcoming Paris Olympics. Many local people I speak are against it because of the cost, but like it or not, it’s on its way here. Today the torch will pass through Perigueux and things were getting set up as we walked out of town.

Like many here, I feel the Olympics have become so commercialized and are well beyond what was ever intended for them to be. However, what France does about the Olympics is not really any of my concern.

As indicated in today’s map, the route essentially followed the L’Isle River as it flows very rapidly downstream. I spent some time before Annemarie arrived figuring out a route for today that would keep us out of the mud, but provide us with some joy as well. I’ve had pretty good success planning my daily routes, but occasionally it’s easy to get it a little off when working from a mapping app.

As you’ll see from some of my photos, the river was swollen to its banks and in some places beyond. Lots of heavy rain continues to fall, and Annemarie has already noted how green everything is. The last three years it’s been extremely hot at this time, but not this year.

As we progressed downstream we went through some fairly commercial areas, but they were well to our right. Initially we walked right along the edge of the river. However, eventually a busy highway began running alongside us to our right. I was a little concerned that this was one of the main roads I’d identified to walk along. At the first major traffic circle a lot of the heavy traffic continued onwards in our direction.

At one point the walking route took us away from the highway for a few blocks and through a bit of a residential area. It wasn’t the nicest area, but I always appreciate the efforts of some people.

As we progressed, the joke of the day became just how many places there were to buy groceries and also to stop and eat something. It was utterly ridiculous after the complete lack of these types of facilities I have experienced over the prior 600 km. As I said, I don’t think Annemarie believes any of my stories.🤣

After a bit of manoeuvring and adjustments, we ended up walking along another D highway that was pretty busy. The good news for us was that at another large traffic circle most of the large trucks went another way. 😮‍💨

To run a bit of salt in the wound, we passed by a bread truck stopped in a village. Where was all this food coming from?

Still on a fairly busy road we found a unique ‘natural’ path along the edge.

There was still more traffic than I usually like to see, and definitely more than I wanted to expose Annemarie to. I’ve walked along many busy highways during my various wanderings and I’m quite comfortable with this. When Annemarie is with me, my tenancy is to take more care. Like I said, things are changing.

We persevered like this for quite a while. Most of the drivers were again fairly courteous, but traffic was somewhat heavy in areas, making it more difficult for the drivers to pull very far away from us. So we took the usual practises of stepping off to the side of the road when big trucks were coming or when it was clear that the two lanes were busy in both directions.

We did pass another amazing Château, the second of the day! I think this one was the nicest of the four we saw. So beautifully symmetrical on the outside. Four in a day! Yup, things are changing.

The sky was doing its usual thing, keeping us guessing!

We found ourselves eventually on a somewhat quieter piece of highway, making it easier to relax as we walked.

That’s about the time we showed up at Château number three. It was also a beautiful building with a turret at each end. This one had been converted to a hotel, probably very high-end. I have observed that across from most of the château I’ve seen in France, there always seems to be a stone cross. I’ve been told that this was a common thing to do in the day.

Shortly after this, Annemarie was introduced to the varied weather that I’ve experienced for almost 4 weeks. She might not believe me about the grocery stores and places to eat, but now she has to believe me about the weather. 😂 Yet another day with some part of it in a liquid form.

Fortunately, the rain didn’t last too long and we were back on the prescribed walking route entering a small town.

And of course, wouldn’t you know it, there was an open café where we could actually sit down and have a refreshment.🙄 Maybe I have been imagining the shortage of these types of places these last four weeks? Probably not…😊

Well, we were inside we missed a heavy rainfall. Bonus!

We started talking about the pros and cons of staying on the chemin into Saint-Astier. Looking at my app and identified several places where we could opt off the trail and back onto the highway. With those places in mind we decided to risk the possible mud and decided to continue along the river. It turned out to be a great decision. The walking was beautiful and the weather cooperated with the sun even showing up.

After following the fast flowing, heavily silted river we eventually broke away to walk along a canal. We knew that we had to get to the left side of the canal, but neither of us were prepared to walk across the little bridge in the picture below.

Fortunately, there was a sluice gate with a road over top which took us across to the left side.

From there the walking was really nice as the road was paved and it took us 7 km all the way into town.

And then we were in. A lovely mediaeval town for Annemarie’s first stop. It could’ve been much worse, so I’m glad that she has a really neat place to stop for her first night.

We had a bit of trouble getting into our apartment tonight. The owner said he left the keys in the door, but his instructions were to an apartment that was above the apartment we ended up staying in. His wife showed up eventually and let us in, and all was well. storm clouds were brewing and some rain was falling so our first chore was definitely finding a grocery store.

And of course, because I’ve never seen this many stores for the whole walk, not only did we find a grocery store, we found a mega grocery store with everything that one could possibly want! So much for my tortellini and bottled spaghetti sauce. We are actually having a nice dinner tonight, complete with wine and appies! As I said at the beginning, things have changed! 😂

And that’s about it from here today. I would call today a fairly good success given we are bringing a solo walker into a team walking experience!😎

Look Puck, a two bottle night! Yes, things are indeed changing!

Bon Chemin!

Geoff☀️🍷☔️