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| Selfie at the market in Villefranche-de-Rouergue. |
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| Main market square. |
We knew today would be our last long walking day. Tomorrow we would be shortening the day again, this time by train. We went out to the market early hoping to purchase some lunch supplies. The Thursday morning market in Villefranche is well known with locals and tourists and during the summer it is packed. Late October, at 7h30, the vendors were still setting up and so we took our time visiting and taking some pictures. The temperature was chilly and I was cold even with long underwear under my pants.
We bought a baguette and some Cantal cheese and walked back to the Maison Pago. We had a delicious breakfast and a warm good-bye from Pierre. We were sad to leave the lovely house, but excited to be starting our last long day.
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| Looking for the GR36 out of Villefranche. |
It took us a while to find the GR36 and our way out of the city. Our goal for the morning was the little town of Monteuils where we would stop for lunch. The trail out of Villefranche was quite steep, followed by more steepness to get to our lunch stop. The day was warm and sunny even though the morning was cold, and because of the hills we were soon down to our shorts and t-shirts.
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| The best kind of picnic: at a table! |
We had a lunch break at a picnic table in Monteils. Baguette, cheese, some pastries, grape tomatoes and cookies made a filling and delicious lunch.
To get out of Monteils we walked for about a kilometre straight up. We were glad to have eaten as we needed the energy to manage the hill. Towards the top of the hill we got a scare when we heard a loud snort from the bushes. We jumped and quickly retraced our steps. Both of us are spooked by wild things in the forest even though we both rationally know that the wild thing is much more scared of us. We finally made it past the spot and once at a safe distance we wondered what kind of animal it could have been.
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| Well described surrounding views. |
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| The valley's stream. |
We now had great views of the surrounding valleys. We were soon walking into another valley down to the stream, then up over the railway tracks and back down to the stream.
Finally we had a view of Najac and we could see that we still had a while to go.
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| Struggling up the last hill. |
We crossed the stream again and walked by the adjacent camp ground. I was discouraged by the steepness of the last hill up to Najac, but I knew we had almost reached our destination. The joy of the day after the exhaustion of the hike was to see the pretty town of Najac. The houses and buildings seem to be balanced on the ridge of the valley with the castle of Najac set at the end of the ridge.
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| View of the castle from our balcony. |
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| Another view from our balcony. |
Our room at the
L'Oustal del Barry was a treat because it had a bathtub for my sore leg and a balcony with sweeping views of the castle and the surrounding valleys.
We decided against the fancy hotel restaurant given our hiking clothes and walked to the local pizzeria. Two pizzas and green salad with wine gave me enough energy to crawl back to the room, take a bath and go to bed early.
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