Our Moveable Feats

June 15, 2026

Cahors -> Lascabanes

We know how lucky we are. After a week of Célé sallies, it was back to the GR 65 / chemin de Puy / Via Podiensis and its intentional pilgrimage for us.

A hearty, blessedly-early breakfast (with yummy crème fraîche + compote pots) on board, it was time for our first steps beyond the bedevilled Pont Valentré, going straight up. We attached ourselves to this cliff-face just ahead of a family which included 4 boys under 10, maman wrangling them and papa pulling a bike trailer set up. Admiration or pity? We debated that for a while.

The rest of the day’s hike included a familiar mix of quieting roads, limestone tracks and forested trails. We failed to out-walk the encroaching heatwave and collected ourselves at Labastide-Marnhac, replenishing our Vitamin C (Orangina) and electrolytes (chips) for the day’s second act.

Soon, the sun was radiating off the unforgiving hard chalk. We felt ourselves being slowly poached when stones inscribed with philosophical quotes drew us to a parallel shaded single-track and normothermia.

We deviated into the village of Lascabanes for refreshment, where we saw a young woman, driving an 18-wheeler, almost take out the church amidst many opinions from the locals. While we quaffed draft beer from a fridge-like apparatus, an effusive Irishman name-dropped one of S’s colleagues before jumping into his 2-CV chaufeured gîte pick-up. We used the 0.06-CV we had left to get the ours.

The evening was unexpectedly strange and sensational: the lone other guest spoke decent English and our host shared his opinions freely but without malice. We enjoyed delectable farm-to-table concoctions with Cahors wine and our conversations spanned life, love, family, religion, choice, death…

A great time had by all four of us… whoops! there was another, who is tiny, but impossible to ignore when she nibbles at your calluses!