Our Moveable Feats

September 11, 2024

Chazeaux -> Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole

The gîte experience should be delightful, cultural and economical… depending on the host’s tone, efficiency and the mix of guests. With ’12 imperfect strangers’, luscious fare and a few wild cats, the nourishment – social and otherwise – was restorative!

Indeed, we were so lulled that we almost forgot to get the bag ready for the transport service! Then the backpack seemed lighter, which was ascribed to our awesome improved fitness… ’til we realized we’d forgotten our cleaned laundry – yeeesh!

Turns out it was good that we’d gotten a bit heated, because it was time to go into the mist… the cold, dank mist.

Our cold-proud Canadian honour on the line, we layered up and ground out a few klicks, leap-frogging a few gîte-mates amidst the bleakness. We paused at a Templar-era stronghold – la Domaine du Sauvage – where hardier pilgrims make camp.

The drudgery & trudgery became rhythmic, even serene, reminiscent of our homeland grey-green collage. A once-great ancient crossroads (now pierced by a roadway), reminds us of our transience in this land of grande histoire: all that remains is a fountain and a stone chapel, guarded by a tiny old woman, surely warmed by her faith. She stamps our credanciales with great gusto, and a blessing.

The benediction works immediately – the crêpe-wagon we’d eyed yesterday is set up nearby! They must be eaten quickly in this cold…

(mushroom/tomme/persillade and chèvre/almonds/honey 😋)

For the next phase, which was a 10k bumpy-slide into the Limagnole Valley (and from Haute-Loire into Lozère), T got the air-pods in and the vacant world, apart from where the feet touch the ground, kept S company. Silly rhymes passed the time – eg. “there’s no rizz in the drizz”.

A mushroom gully was a momentary diversion (no truffles tho’)… and poules!

The descent ushered us through the grounds of an old asylum (now refashioned as a modern psychiatric facility 😉) where there’s a monument to the 300 ‘nameless and pitiful’ patients buried in the Cimetière des fous… their wooden grave markers are long gone, the stone ones of the sisters of mercy remain.

Clever chap (on the left), who, as a WW2 resistance leader, hid out as a patient in this asylum, protected by the psych-in-chief… work is never far away!

*I’m surely a rare tourist to take a snap of the drab, modern unité de psychogériatrie

St. Alban is probably awesome, but we were twinging and dampish, so compressed the sights on the decline – a château with a pink granite ode to Venice, a crypt-encrusted église and scalloped slate roofs everywhere.

Early check-in, demi-pension secured… time for a different kind of chill!