Date: Tuesday, 13 May 2025
Day: 15
From: Saint-Cirque-Lapopie To: Cahors
Start Walking: 625am End Walking: 323pm
Time: 7h39m
Distance (Planned): 33.2km Distance (Garmin): 30.9km
Progress: 371.7/765km
Ascent: 395m Descent: 445m
Weather: BIG fog to start the day the beautiful blue skies.
Stayed At: Booking dot com apartment with WASHING MACHINE!
General Comments:
• OMG, I smell! I was walking along quite merrily and wondering what that smell was until, after many kilometres, I realised it was me! Or rather, my clothes. If it would have been possible, I would have preferred to walk upwind of myself today!🤣
• Anyone who has done a walk like this will understand the challenges of keeping clothes fresh. When the days are long and you arrive at your accommodation later in the afternoon, even if the Gite does have a washing machine, there is no guarantee that you will be able to get things dry for the next day. So, we make do with hand washing the basics and pinning them to your backpack to dry as we walk along. That was all rectified when we reached Cahors and we are now fresh as daisies. Apologies if this is all too much information! 😁
• Anyway, back to today’s stage… Another big fog enveloped us as we set out and it gave everything quite an ethereal beauty, especially as it lingered over the river.
• Today was going to be a long day and we got going early to try to cover as much distance before the warmer temperatures arrived. Our guidebook indicated that there were a couple of opportunities to take unmarked shortcuts and both of us were keen to take those if we could only we could work out the description of the directions.
• I do like guidebooks as they give you so much information and you can read up before you set out for the day. Unfortunately, sometimes the written directions are gobbledegook in comparison to what you are staring at on the ground.
• After much standing around, looking around and re-reading the book, we set out to find the first shortcut. This involved scrambling steeply through a blackberry scrub and finally onto an old railway bridge! Yay, we worked it out and saved ourselves a few kilometres.
• Lots of cyclists out and about today and they were making short work of the paved back roads and lovely sweeping descents. Not for us, it was more plod, plod, plod.
• Thankfully, there was only one serious climb today and the rest of the day was spent on flat roads and paths now hugging the Lot River.
• Said paths were probably closer to a jungle with grass shoulder high, fallen trees and logs, and rampant blackberry and stinging nettles. They have obviously had an abundant start to Spring and also do not have any Friends of the Camino associations or similar groups interested in maintaining the trail and supporting pilgrims. That’s perfectly fine of course, but it did make the last 6km pretty hard going. The Husband had to get down on hands and knees at times to get under some obstacles blocking the path. Not an easy thing to do when carrying a laden backpack.
• A funny thing happened in one particularly jungle-like section of the trail – a bird took a set against us! The Husband thought it was a cute bird and that he would take a photo of this character. It was not happy and proceeded to fly at us, landing on our hats and backpacks, and directly at his face and camera. The bird even drew blood with its beak and claws. This was not quite the welcome to Cahors we were expecting!
• And now we have a decadent rest day to enjoy Cahors and wash every item of clothing we own!
Top Tips:
• If you have time, organise a rest day I Cahors. It is a lovely city with lots of history and all amenities a pelerin requires.
• The ladies in the Tourist Office are wonderfully helpful and assisted us to book some accommodation on the next stage.
Bon Chemin.
Life...one big adventure 
So it’s not only Australian magpies that swoop….I wonder what kind of bird it was?
Love the magical misty views 😊
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We showed the photo to the ladies at the tourist office and they identified it as an Eurasian Jay. They were really shocked to see a photo The Husband had taken of the bird taking off from my hat and launching itself directly at him. Apparently they have a reputation for being quite aggressive and I have to agree. Maybe it was trying to keep the riff raff out of Cahors!🤣
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Oh, that’s fascinating. Thanks for the follow-up enlightenment 🤗
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💕
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Maybe you disturbed a nest?
Love the roses.
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Yes, perhaps or maybe it was used to people feeding it and we just weren’t delivering the goods fast enough? And Yes, the roses have been spectacular along the trail.
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Beautiful photos again Mel.
I’m loving your travels.
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Ta, there’s so much beauty on this trail, it’s hard to stop taking photos. 📷📸
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Love a happy ending! Or rather, midpoint xx
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Yep, hard to believe we are halfway distance and days-wise. Time flies when you are having fun!
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A washing machine – yay! The simple things in life eh 🙂
Fingers crossed for no more nasty birds!
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Yep, these sorts of walks really highlight the key priorities in life: food, shower, bed and washing machine. And Yep, will be giving any birdlife a wide berth from now on! 😁🦅🦅
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A beautiful moody walk.
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Yep, the skies have been fabulous, even when they are grey.
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Oh yes it is great to have clothing washed in the machine.. Cahors is a nice city… and then you will not get very big cities until Moissac …. hope all is well. I will check your other post. I see you walk many km each day. 33 km is too much for me… But I think you are much younger than me !
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Geez, I don’t know about that. I feel pretty old at the end of each day! 🙃😴😎
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The flowers are so beautiful 😍
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I love their brilliant colours. They really pop!🌻🌻
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Trips like this really do make one appreciate the little things. Like laundry, for instance.
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Looking forward to tomorrow’s washing machine session!😁
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Haha, it’s always funny to see/read how happy a pilgrim can be with something so simple than a washing machine😂. You should have held those beautiful flowers you took pictures of under your nose!
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We pilgrims are simple folk, as you know only too well. And I think I would have needed a whole garden, not a few blooms, to douse my stench!🤣🤣🤣
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Love the reflection photos Mel. The old section of Cahors is wonderful. Our AirBnB hostess recommended a local restaurant to us tucked away in a laneway- best menu of the day meal we had in France. Cheers
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Oh, I wish I had known the name of the restaurant. It would have been nice to have a truly local meal in Cahors. Such a great town.
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