Day 13 - Stunning Beauty and Heavenly Music : Espeyrac to Conques

After the usual breakfast at the hotel, we headed out around 7:30 and began the morning climb out of the valley. This took us quite a while because today was a short hike, and the sun rising through the morning fog was absolutely gorgeous! The fields were covered in dew, and the cool morning temperatures were very enjoyable.

We reached the little village of Senegues around 9:30, and stopped to visit the Church of St. Michel. It was very beautiful, and the village seemed like a peaceful and picaresque place to stop, although very tiny. Beside the church is another old building with a tower, which also looked very interesting, but wasn't open to the public.

On the way out of town we passed a pasture with a donkey, and stopped to feed him dandelions. We have passed quite a few donkeys on this walk so far, and they all seem to enjoy a few handfuls of dandelions from the other side of the fence, and a good ear rub.

 

After Senegues it was a relatively easy walk along paved country roads and dirt tracks. We had beautiful views of the colourful patchwork fields, with the red soil contrasting with the green and yellow crops. All this was accented by wildflowers, which were swarming with bees and butterflies. We have been noticing the huge variety of bees in France, and enjoying the sound of buzzing, which together with some amazing bird songs the are loudest noises through large parts of our hikes some days.

The climb down into Conques was extremely steep, down a narrow dirt track shaded by trees. It was quite magical, but as the guidebook suggests, would have been extremely treacherous if it were wet. When we finally emerged from the shaded tunnel of a path and the town revealed itself, it looked very medieval and impressive. We made our way down steep cobblestone streets to the abbey, and went into the cool interior.

The church of Saint Foy is famous for the impressive tympanum over the door, which shows scenes of the judgment day. Inside is a reliquary with the remains of Saint Foy. It is a very simple but beautiful church, but the windows have been re-done in stripes of white glass, instead of coloured stained glass as we have come to expect. The effect is a very light interior to the church, which is tall and rounded inside, with a large upper gallery.

We made our way to the shaded courtyard outside the church to wait for the accommodations in the abbey to open at 2pm. When this occurred there was a bit of chaos as the 50 or so waiting pilgrims were sorted into dormitories and instructed by volunteers to put our backpacks in plastic bags to help reduce the chance of bedbugs. We were in a dormitory with 7 or so other bunk beds.

Once we had gotten settled and done our laundry and had showers we headed out to explore the town. We found a small ice cream stand, where I tried the d'Aubrac sprinkled with ginger (very tasty!). We then went into the Tresor museum. This turned out to be a single room with glass cases around the walls displaying the abbey's treasures. While the reliquaries and other objects were interesting, we left feeling that perhaps it wasn't quite worth the entry fee.

At 6pm we had a communal meal in the abbey with around 100 or so other pilgrims. We sat at a table with 6 other English speakers, and had an enjoyable meal. Afterwards we went to the church for Complies and the benediction of the pilgrims, which was offered in several languages. This was followed by one of the priests giving an explanation of the tympanum outside the church.

Unfortunately my grasp of the French language was insufficient to understand much of what was said, but it sounded like his commentary was quite entertaining. After this we went into the church for an organ concert, and for 6 Euros we were able to walk around the upper gallery while the priest played organ music. He clearly enjoyed playing enormously, and even regaled us with 'House of the Rising Sun'! This was a wonderful experience, and I would highly recommend it!

We decided to spend a second day in Conques to take a rest before the 800 m climb out of this valley, and to get caught up on our blog and reservations. Although Conques is certainly a beautiful town, it is very touristy, with many bus groups coming through, and we were left with the feeling that much of it is staged. Certainly it is more magical in the evening and early morning when it is largely empty of tourists.

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Practical Information: 
Distance: 12.5 km

Cumulative ascent: 419 m

Cumulative descent: 513 m

Max Temperature: 25˚C

Accommodations: Centre d'Accueil Abbaye Sainte Foy