Mixed Blessings

Our taxi to return us to St Chely, from our gastronomic heaven (see minders' blog for an account of that fantastic meal), turned up 5 minutes early at 8.10 (we had to be squeezed in before the school run), and we got the nice lady driver to drop us outside the bakery so we could buy lunch.

Today's walking was another real gem, and can you believe it? It was different again to all the other days. How long can we keep on getting new landscapes every day? Today we followed a deep gorge, walking through lovely beech woods to start, and then switching to chestnut woods before coming out into yet more pasture, where the cows had changed to a deeper shade of brown.

It was really hot once again and we watched lizards scuttling about all over the place. Yes, it really is Mediterranean heat. Strangely it seems to get hottest after 2.00 p.m. so we were pleased to complete our fairly short, 11.9 mile stage, around this time.

We drank Oranginas in shady cafe where we found our nice German friends and talked about the Lake district. We did a bit of shopping and made a call to book us a caravan for tomorrow night (the man told us he had nice rooms and seemed surprised when we wanted a caravan, but was happy when our minder said we would go demi-pension). We then wandered up to the Convent where we are staying.

Talk about posh! It is a beautiful old stone building with lovely grounds to sit in, but the rooms are really modern, with en-suite wet rooms. And what's more you can even get beer from a vending machine, use the Internet for free and 'lave-linge' in a machine automatique. Beautifully smelling clean clothes are now drying on the line in the sun, for the first time in a week. Hand washing just doesn't get the same results! If this was a hotel in G.B. it would cost a fortune, yet here we just have to make a voluntary donation, albeit against a scale of suggested donations.

We found the downside of this place when we attended evening prayer in the Chapel. There were 8 pilgrims there and only 2 ladies from the Convent. We thought they were nuns and were disappointed that there were only 2. Having been served dinner by the same 2 ladies, and having heard bells ringing after our service, presumably to call the nuns to prayer, we concluded they were not nuns and that the nuns have their own services.

This might, hopefully, mean that the Community is alive and well, but Gio is awfully disappointed at the segregation and doesn't undestand why he couldn't worship with the nuns.

So, in summary, this is a lovely place to stay in great luxury, but the spiritual experience is somewhat lacking. Never mind, we've just been offered extra wine by the hospitalier, who turned out to be the man we spoke to yesterday and we've found a lovely lady from Lichtenstein to talk to (who doesn't work in a bank - she asked us to tell you) so we're very happy.

Love from the Camino Bears xxx