day 22 – draft
Wednesday, 27 April 2016
Manciet  to  Aire-sur-'lAdour
38 km today - 584 km to date

Mathieu does a good breakfast and I am off as it is a long way today.  I follow the road to Nogaro where I stop for coffee and look inside a well laid out church, then on.

Again  I take the road as it is more direct than the official path and has more consistent surface and grades.  I am conscious of my left leg foot and have tied the laces two holes down from the top.

Nothing of moment to see or stop for.

About 4 km from the target the heat of the day gets to me and I hitch a ride to the cathedral.  After saying the evening office I decide to try a gite on the way out of town: it is no longer working so go further up the hill to the chapel of a seminary. Here  I encounter Florian, the electronics engineer I met on the first day coming out of Le Puy.

The gite uses all of the large chapel.  It is bigger than many parish churches and is  a restoration project open to the public.  The entrance lobby looks as though it was a vestry / sacristy while the bedroom on the opposite side may have had a similar purpose. It now has eight beds. Tonight we are seven men and one woman, all of mature years.  Dinner is good but no conversation for me.

And so to bed.