Limoges

Sunday 28 September – rest day in Bénévent L’Abbaye

We were still tucked up cosily in bed, drinking mugs of tea, reading, writing etc when we heard a key in the door and in came Dr Conquet.He was worrying about the key that had disappeared by the previous occupant of the refuge – the rule is that you leave it on top of the electricity fuse box in the entrance hall, but he hadn’t. Dr C explained to us with the international gesture of pointing at the head that he had thought this gentleman was a bit ‘fou’ or possibly on drugs, as he had found him deeply asleep during the day, and after this he had departed without any further communication.

 

 

After more converse with Dr Conquet we left Bénévent L’Abbaye on

Monday 29 Sept

and cycled ( via a little church with lots of frescos where we ate lunch outside in the sun, and Bridget sang in the empty church) to St Léonard De Noblat which has, guess what, a big church. A young man waited until it was empty to play his flute in there.  (We were still in the porch.) The refuge de pelerins was again right opposite it.  It was a hilly day and our legs were getting noticeably tired-er.  There was nowhere open to buy supper after we had looked round the church and the local art exhibition the girl in the tourist office recommended – all we could find were three slices of pizza in a boulangerie about to close. We topped them with our emergency tin of fish!

Tuesday 29 Sept

Following Dr C’s advice we decided to give Limoges a miss and set off on a clockwise route south west of the city over lots more ups and downs. Our legs complained – walking, slow cycling or faster, nothing felt OK except free wheeling downhill.  We had lunch in Solignac with yet another big church which had 16 century wooden carved misericords as well as older stone carvings.

By the time we made it to Flavignac we were bushed. This had a lovely little refuge opposite its (normal-sized) church (but with trésor) which we shared with Jean-Pierre who spoke english! (And snored as much as Peter, says Bridget who was the last to fall asleep) He said there was lots to see in Limoges and it was a pity to miss it. As the height profile of the route in our guide suggested that to continue to Perigeuex (another 100 ish kms) and arrive there on Thursday with time to see anything and buy train tickets was going to be a struggle, espêcially with tired legs (don’t know how I made that hat on the e) we reverted to plan A: finishing in Limoges, so today,

Wed 1 October

we cycled north up the route St Jacques to Limoges which was as nasty as any city to get into the middle of. When we got there it chucked it down for a brief while, so we dried off and recovered with a hot chocolate, before setting off to track down the cheap hotels with the tarif pelerin (we could have gone to the diocesan foyer type place, but fancied a double bed and our own space for the last two nights.  Oh la la la – all the hotels seemed to be complet. Eventually with the Tourist Office’s help we have ended up in the just reopened Hotel du Gare, nicely convenient to the very striking Gare des Benedictins, where after an afternoon’s lounge (sleep and reading) we have got our tickets to Paris for Friday morning.  Jean-Pierre has described how to cycle from Gare Austerlitz to Gare du Nord (involves Notre Dame, places de la Bastille and Republique and the canal St Martin) and the nice girl in the ticket office has checked that Eurostar is running our service.

So tomorrow involves seeing a few more big churches with pilgrim connections, and buying the maps for next year, as they are so much cheaper here than in England.

Watch this space for fuller journal entries and photos eventually.