La flânerie parait un anachronisme dans le monde où règne l’homme pressé. Jouissance du temps, des lieux, elle est un chemin de traverse dans la modernité.
(Wasting time walking may appear to be an anachronistic act in a world dominated by speed. Because it means enjoying time, and places, walking represents a rejection, an insult, to modernity.)
- David Le Breton, Chemins de traverse : Eloge de la marche
We took a shortcut along a country road instead of walking through the woods around a lake.
We stopped in Place de l'Eglise Saint-Jacques (of course!) in the village of Momy for a delicious picnic of hard-boiled eggs, tinned mackerel and fresh bread.
We arrived in Anoye in the early afternoon and settled into the pilgrim hostel, which is located upstairs from the town hall and has a beautiful garden. The door is always open, so we walked in and made ourselves at home, helped ourselves to books and to beer from the fridge (putting one euro in the piggy bank for each drink) and spent the rest of the afternoon in complete flânerie, sitting on the lawn sunbathing and polishing our boots!
As the afternoon went by the hostel gradually filled up, and we had a merry company for dinner. At six pm the volunteers came round to take payment for the night and for groceries from their supply, as there is no shop in the village. After dinner we all went out to see the town's chief attraction, the "fontaine bienfaisant", which turned out to be a bit of a disappointment, and didn't look very health-giving at all; but a little lamb in the field beside it provided some amusing entertainment frolicking about, leaping straight up into the air and running about on its unstable little legs from one to another of the adult sheep, none of whom were interested in playing with it, ignoring the poor thing and continuing their grazing. Poor little lamb, an only child with no-one to play with!
Taking it slowly today. Sunday will be a day of rest for us, too. Starting with a leisurely breakfast with Corine and Michel in their kitchen, while waiting for our laundry to go through the dryer. The climate is very damp in this part of the country in Spring, and nothing has dried overnight. In any case, we decided to walk only a short way today, to Anoye, as there are no accommodations between Anoye and Morlaas, another 15 km down the road. 30 km was too far for us to walk in one day, especially because an old ankle injury has begun to bother Marius, and he limped much of the way yesterday! He suggested we go ahead while he waited for the clothes to dry, but by now we are like a family and we will all go together!
Michel of Gîte CoMic is a professional photographer, and he took the above pictures of us in departure in the morning and emailled them to us the very same day!
Very soon the Pyrénées came into view.
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| Finding our way around, the modern way (with Google Maps) and the old-fashioned way (asking the locals for directions) |
We stopped in Place de l'Eglise Saint-Jacques (of course!) in the village of Momy for a delicious picnic of hard-boiled eggs, tinned mackerel and fresh bread.
We arrived in Anoye in the early afternoon and settled into the pilgrim hostel, which is located upstairs from the town hall and has a beautiful garden. The door is always open, so we walked in and made ourselves at home, helped ourselves to books and to beer from the fridge (putting one euro in the piggy bank for each drink) and spent the rest of the afternoon in complete flânerie, sitting on the lawn sunbathing and polishing our boots!
Vidouze - Anoye 12 km
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