Luxury

 

I got up to a cold gite this morning and quickly got ready to go.  Having checked out my breakfast (which had been given to me in a bag the night before) I decided to share it with the chickens outside my door.  I'm afraid this is a reflection on the quality of the breakfast rather than a newfound love of barnyard animals.

I left Noillhac and headed off towards Decazeville (see photo) in what turned out to be a sunny but chilly day.  When you

are up on the hills there is still an occasional chilly wind.

This stage was a little dissapointing, the landscapes are not as impressive as in the Aubrac and there is a lot more evidence of human activity.  Houses and farms crop up regularly and I was often walking on asphalt.

However, my final chambre d'hote (an upgrade from the gites I have been in so far) makes up for the day.  A 300 year old house with a nice fire and proper insulation allowed me to

relax after my last full day of hiking (tomorrow is a short hike to the train station back to Paris).

My hosts (a couple with 2 teenage children) had bought the house a little over a year ago.  They wanted a change of life.  He was a maintenance engineer and she worked in a office around Le Mans and now they live and work in this relatively isolated house on the Chemin. No regrets so far.  Actually, interestingly enough the only times that my different hosts have expressed a regret, its been to say that they wished they could have found somewhere even more isolated!  (That's like me saying I wish I could be more centrally located in Paris).

Before I close down the competition can anybody tell me what (material) thing I missed the most during my trip?