Camino v3 - Day 18: Boisredon to Saintes (66 km)

I'm up early. Dominic and Danielle are already at the breakfast table with the usual bowls of coffee and some bread. Except Dominic's bowl is enormous even by French standards. I get to try one of Danielle's home-made yoghurts and some of Dominic's home-made bread,  both of which are very good. Last night during the dinner conversation I made the observation that I didn't understand how people on the Chemin de Compostelle - riders and walkers - could consider coffee and yesterday's baguette (sometimes toasted) a substantial or balanced breakfast to sustain them for the morning. Dominic is having coffee and a piece of baguette and I wonder if he remembers last night's conversation.

Sun making an appearance near Saint-Genis-de-Saintonge

Just after I've set off, I spot a jogger up ahead; it's the guy from the other number 11 who of course remembers me (how many bike riders with bright yellow panniers is he likely to encounter in a week). He asks whether I found the other number 11.

Soon after, I'm faced with an ongoing series of descents and steep climbs as the road crosses a series of ridges. For only the second or third time in the entire ride so far I am down to my lowest gear and my legs are just not wanting to cooperate. This is the problem with the coffee and bread breakfast; the hills are really not that steep, it's the lack of energy that's the issue. I stop and take out my emergency banana, which I have for just such an occasion. It helps a little, but not much.

A 'hide' for the local hunters

At Mirambeau I stop at the village square and have look at my GPS. The map of the town is liberally sprinkled with little icons; the must be twenty or thirty in the space of a few hundred square metres. It looks like some mapping artefact. Checking the legend I discover that they are water wells. I'm curious to know whether this is real or indeed just a mapping error, so I ride to one nearby (I have plenty to choose from). Sure enough, there in a little fenced off yard is an old water well. I wonder why this village in particular has so many water wells. Or perhaps it's more a case of whoever entered the mapping data was more thorough in this village; I would think most old villages in France would have a lot of water wells. This sort of thing occupies you during your bike ride.

Morning coffee at the Café du Centre at Saint-Genis-de-Sainfonge, another long hyphenated village. The café is the sort of place where the older and younger men of the village, with nothing more productive to do, hang out all day, alternating beer and coffee. Across the road on the square the market is full swing, but it's not a big affair: just a few vans of the mobile fromager, charcutier, and boucher. The church clock strikes 11:00. A bit later it rings the time again; in this part of France the bells seem to sound the time twice each hour, just like they do in Spain.

Pons - Streets lined with derelict shops

At Pons I stop at the (former) pilgrim hospital, an impressive building from 1160 which, of course, is closed today. I note that, presumably for convenience, the cemetery is located right next door to the hospital, making it a sort of "one-stop-shop" for some of the unfortunate pilgrims who have passed this way before. Pons is a nice town, but as I ride through the narrow streets I am struck, yet again, by how these small (and some not-so-small) towns are slowly dying. I ride past countless boarded-up and closed shops, witness to the decline of the small business in the face of the relentless onslaught from the larger and more convenient hypermarkets.

Grapes again - but these are not destined to become wine

It's been a bit of a wildlife ride today: a pheasant flying along the road in front of me, until it finally decided to head into the trees; a squirrel crossing just in front of the bike, straight up a tree on the other side; Bambi made an appearance; and as I was walking through the tall grass around an ancient Roman arena (just the sort of thing you stumble across in Europe) a hare jumped out of nowhere and hightailed it (literally) across the arena and into the nearby cornfields. I've also been riding through vineyards again; this time with white grapes that will be turned into the local Pineau and Cognac.

I arrive at the pilgrim refuge, which is tucked away in a little square behind the Église Saint Eutrope, an hour before it opens. I expected this, but today my legs are tired and I'm happy to sit and wait rather than go and ride or walk around the town.  I take the time to do some of my daily paperwork. Luckily the woman who's on duty today arrives early, so my wait isn't so long in the end. We chat a while; the people who man the pilgrim refuges are all volunteers who rotate duty at different places throughout the year. Virtually all of them have walked at least some of the Chemin themselves. It's quiet, and by the time I've had my shower and done my washing - a daily routine - nobody else has arrived; I may well be alone tonight. My legs have recovered a bit and I head out to explore. Given that I'm virtually sleeping there, the church is the obvious place to start (the internal walls of the refuge are actually the external walls of the church). But I find the crypt, which is freely open and is essentially the same size as the entire church above it, much more interesting.  When I get back to the refuge, there's another bike parked outside. It's Nico, a Belgian guy, who doesn't speak a word of French. So there's me, a Dutch Australian, being the interpreter in French for someone from Belgium, a country where French is one of the two official languages. Slightly bizarre. Nico's wife is following him in their camper-van (with a friend of hers) so she's having a camper-van holiday while he's riding the Camino. Once a week they meet and he gets to spend a night in the camper-van. Sounds like a pretty good arrangement.

The crypt of the Eglise Saint Eutrope, Saintes

The other side of Saintes

I have the idea to have dinner in a restaurant right near "my" church; both because it's a nice-looking place with interesting food on their menu, and because I don't feel like walking down the steep hill to the lower part of town where all the other restaurants are. I turn up at the completely empty restaurant. I walk in to ask for a table and two of the staff immediately approach me, with what is a "what are you doing here" look on their faces. Admittedly I am dressed like someone on the Chemin de Compostelle and this is a relatively fancy place, however I do not expect them to tell me that the restaurant is full and there are no tables free. The place is, after all, completely empty. It is, of course, possible that all the other guests will turn up soon, but my cynical mind can't help thinking that they simply don't want me spoiling the look of their restaurant. 

Smile - you're on camera

So I get to walk down to the lower end of town anyway. Near the floodlit cathedral is a painted mark on the ground; it says "Point Selfie". Later I discover that there are several of these around the town. Is this Australia's contribution to French culture? Somehow I find the whole concept a little sad; the town (presumably) has spent their funds on painting marks on the ground to identify good places for tourists to take their own picture. Afterwards I discover a website that discusses and explains these "points selfie" which have cost the town 1,600 euros to install.

I'm having dinner, in what turns out to be a simple casual restaurant that serves excellent food - I should thank the other restaurant for not letting me in. Behind me is a Belgian couple, speaking Belgian Dutch (they probably wouldn't appreciate me calling it that). That's three Flemish-speaking Belgians I've encountered in the space of a couple of hours. I notice that they have a baby stroller at the table, but the baby must be asleep because I don't hear a thing during dinner. When they leave, I glance at the stroller as it is pushed past my table; there's a dog in it! That explains the lack of baby noises but it makes me wonder - this is the second time in a few weeks that I see someone pushing a dog in a stroller. Is this really something that is considered normal here? The guy follows; his dog, which is quite a bit bigger than hers, is on a more traditional leash.

There's a couple across the other side of the outside courtyard where I am eating. It's almost too much, the way they are besotted with each other. I'm not sure they've noticed what they are eating, and in between courses they are playing with each other's hands as they stare into each other's eyes. There's two women at the table next to mine; one is rather large and the other is not. They've both ordered large meals, and while one of them - you can guess which one - has no trouble dealing with her meal, the other is only picking at hers. Rather strangely, she's picking at her meal with her knife, picking pieces from the plate with the point of the (steak) knife and eating them off the end of the knife. I have to stop myself following her movements. I'm distracted from this by the arrival of a group of five who no sooner have they sat down but they get up in pairs (the odd one out is left behind), probably an important toilet break. One of the guys has a vaper (is that what is called?) on a cord around his neck. He sucks on it from time to time as is the fashion. Although I'm in a restaurant, I'm sitting outside and this is France, so smoking and vaping are still allowed. I'm probably biased because I'm not a smoker, but vaping seems a bit bizarre. Then again, smoking is pretty bizarre as well when you think about it.

The town is deserted as I walk through the little cobbled streets back up the hill to my church retreat. The floodlit cathedral makes a nice backdrop from the selfie point.

Follow the signs