Day 29: Stage 24: La Réole

29 km, cloud with bit of sun, 20°

Red Devils Win FA Cup!!🎉

Late yesterday afternoon we sat in the little bar in the village square and had a cold beer while I read the play-by-play of the FA cup final online through the British press.

It was Manchester United versus Manchester City. City won the league this year and are considered one of the best teams on the planet. United experienced a fairly miserable year due to so many injuries and other things, and were huge underdogs. When I tuned in, I was shocked to see that United were up by two goals! The game got a little tense when city scored a late goal and then seven minutes of injury time was added on. However, United are now the FA Cup champions again. I briefly thought of all the teams that had better seasons, but ended up with no silverware. So that was my excitement late yesterday afternoon. I don’t think Annemarie quite shared my enthusiasm.😉

It was a long night for both of us with the church bells just across the square ringing every half hour through the entire night. Part of the joy.😑

Our roommates last night told us that they were going to be up at six and out the door before seven. Thankfully it never happened. They were actually up just after 6:30 and were still sorting themselves out when we left at 7 to find the bakery.

Annemarie had pre-ordered a sandwich to carry with us so that she/we would have something to eat when we arrived. It’s a good thing to do because it’s often difficult to find food on Sunday. It turned out that the bread loaf used was pretty big. I dutifully offered to carry said sandwich, which must’ve weighed over almost 2 lbs. I’m not kidding.😳 Well maybe a bit, but it was heavy!

I had yet again sorted out a route for us (sounding like a broken record) that missed a few parts of the Camino route, but largely followed it. Still pretty wet and muddy.

Some of the wineries along the road are pretty impressive. Clearly someone’s made plenty of money making wine!

We entered a very interesting town with a huge church and administrative building. While Annemarie was looking for a bathroom, I bumped into one of the administrators. She apologized profusely about not being able to open “the amazing church” for us, saying that she was late for a piano recital. I’ve heard a lot of excuses…😂. I took a look around and the place was actually pretty interesting. I didn’t care a whole lot about missing the church. I’ve seen a few.

But it did look really interesting, and i’ve learned that anything that’s hundreds of years old is usually worth a look.

Just think of all the bottles of fine Bordeaux wines these fields will produce this year, and in future years. My good friend David really enjoyed travelling in this area and sampling the wines with his wife Linda.

Annemarie was on a mission today. It was a fairly long stage and we took two breaks along the way. There were no places to have a hot drink, but occasionally we found somewhere to sit. She did fine, and no new blisters. Just continuing to tape and reduce the existing blisters. It’s now been almost a week for Annemarie and she’s starting to find her legs.

Often when I walk, I’ll write text messages and emails or even phone for accommodations. Today I did some of that, but I also was practicing selfies!

This was one of the little villages where we stopped for a short breather. Right beside the cemetery.

We approached this castle from the far side and were both wondering what was there because very little of it showed. We really liked what we found as we came around the corner. This is just one of the joys we’ve had while walking distance. Always curious to see what’s around the next corner.

Again today, we walked through some very beautiful landscapes.

Wild flowers everywhere!

And then we were into La Réole, an important mediaeval city. Before we could look at the city though, it was lunchtime. The hell with the 2 pound sandwich which I had carried in my pack for 29 km. I just knew this was going to happen.😅🙄

Given it was a Sunday, we didn’t expect very much to be open. As a matter of fact, there was almost nothing open. Except for this very good pizza restaurant that was packed indoors and outdoors when we arrived. We were hoping just to get a cold drink, but the food on the tables around us changed our minds.

Our appetites satisfied, we set off to walk the streets of this mediaeval city. It was like a complete ghost town. Like no one at all lived here. Our host later explained to us that if we were here tomorrow, we’d see loads of activity. He added that the old town was usually pretty dead on a Sunday. I think he kind of hit the nail right on the head. 

It was a bit spooky, but we carried on eventually finding the central church and a large array of historic administrative buildings which are still being used in that capacity.

We were both surprised at the inside of the church

Our sightseeing completed we walked down to the old, but very cool, metal bridge to cross over and find our Airbnb.

We got settled in with laundry done, showers finished, video chats with the kids and the blog started. However, before we knew it, it was time to go find another meal. Annemarie had found a nice little restaurant at the end of the bridge. So we dressed up in our finest walking clothes and headed back across the bridge, only to meet our host with his three dogs as we stepped out the door. The dogs names are Winston, John and Yoko. Pretty cute pug type dogs. Winston is the ugly one. 😎

We crossed back over the bridge only to find the little restaurant closed. so we decided to hurry back up to the grocery store before it closed to see what we could find there for dinner.

A bit of frozen food, some nice fresh bread, a jar of pate plus a cold beer and we were set to go. We are now back in our little apartment enjoying our somewhat spontaneous dinner.

And that’s about it for today. From here, we begin to walk across a much flatter river floodplain largely covered by forest. it’ll be an interesting change from the last number of days. We are staying right on the Camino and have already knocked 1 km off tomorrow’s walk. So I guess that means tomorrow will be an easier day!😇

Bon Chemin!

Geoff🎉🎉🎉🎉 I am still celebrating!!