Day 33 - A Night in the Cathedral : Nogaro to Aire-sur-l'Ardour

Today we reluctantly got up at 5:30 and left our lovely air conditioned room behind, after a quick breakfast of chocolatines and instant coffee.  It was a beautiful morning, although already 22 degrees when we left at 5:30 am.

We had a short stretch of road walking to meet back up with the Camino, and then were quickly back in the fields, walking between vineyards and corn fields as the sun rose.

The walk was actually quite varied, including a short forested stretch.  In this stretch we came across a gigantic beetle on the path, equipped with pinchers large enough to give even an ecologist the shivers. This was not the first one of these creatures we had seen, but it was the first one that was still alive and kicking!

Around 8:00 we came to the village of Lenin Lapijolle, where we stopped for a picnic of raisin buns and water outside the church.  We were able to visit the church, but the bakery sadly was closed.  We continued on through the countryside, until we reached a straight section of trail beside a railway track.  We had great hopes that this would be a covered rail trail, but no such luck.

It was a hot hike to Barcelonne en Gers, and I stopped several times to be sprayed with water by the giant devices deployed to water the corn.  This provided some relief, and was quite fun too.

Coming in to Barecelonne was a bit rough.  There were narrow streets with somewhat dilapidated homes, and a rougher brand of people, and at one point we walked past the gates to a prison.  Shortly afterwards we encountered another bakery, where we restocked on raisin buns, and then we found the church, which was a wonderfully peaceful feeling sanctuary.

  
After the church it was a very hot and exposed walk along residential streets into Aire-sur-l'Ardour.  We stopped at a Carrefour grocery store on the way in to stock up on granola bars and apple sauce, which has become a favourite snack.  Then we headed in, past an old Lavoir, through the outskirts of town, and eventually across a river to the center.

We sat in a very nice treed park on the side of the river for a bit, seeing as it was only 11 am and our gite didn't open until 3pm.  At the end of the park was a bullfighting (or bull dodging) arena.  From the bridge we could see the two main streets of town, which were adorned with red and white flags.  This seems to be a Basque tradition, and we had been seeing other Basque cultural elements during the past couple days, such as white houses with red shutters.

 After our break we visited the cathedral which is very elaborately painted inside.  Every surface is covered in rich dark paint with gold highlights.  It is very beautiful, and although every column and arch is painted differently, it is all balanced.

After visiting the cathedral we hung out in the circular grain market for a while, which is a round roofed structure supported by columns, and then we went in search of our gite.  We decided to stay in a converted chapel for tonight.  We soon discovered that it is located at the top of a very steep hill!

We waited for about an hour outside for the doors to open, and as we sat there we talked to a very nice girl from Germany, and a lady from France.  When we were let inside, we discovered that the building is beautiful!  It seems the owners bought the chapel when it was in horrible shape, and have been restoring it slowly ever since.  They have done a huge amount of work, which is still in progress.  As we had a shower and did our chores, several pilgrims we have been travelling with appeared.  It is always nice to see familiar faces!

We wandered back down to the town to visit the cathedral again, and sat on an open patio with a cold drink for a bit. It was rather too hot to enjoy being outside however, so we soon returned to the gite to catch up on the blog and look at our plans for the coming days. 

__________________________________________________________________________________
Practical Information: 
Distance: 27.4 km

Cumulative ascent: app. 283 m

Cumulative descent: app. 333 m

Max Temperature: 37˚C

Accommodations: La Chapelle des Ursulines