Day 7 Saint-Come-d'Olt

Friday 23rd September and I am dropping down off the higher reaches of the Massif Central. This means no frost and an altogether warmer feel helped by the wind coming from the south-west. It's a short 16km day and I get a good view back to the last village before a roller coaster walk, albeit mostly downhill.

If you looked at my Brittany cycling blog you might recall the multitude of calvaries. In this region the crosses are more subtle. 
I am including a few scene shots; they aren't photos that catch the eye but they do accurately reflect the landscape, its scale, and its lack of man-made objects such as roads and villages. 
Dropping down to the Lot valley. 
I have had a deliberately gentle start over the first week but now I am in for 8 days where I am walking 23km to 28km a day. I am keeping an eye on feet, legs, shoulders which are all fine. My only niggle is my rucksack creating some soreness on my lower back; not ideal but I can manage that. 

Despite the distances to come I go out for a 7km run after walking and as I follow the Via Podiensis I come across someone I keep bumping into and he thinks I am mad. Part of the drive to go running is that tonight's gite is quite basic. The eight bed dormitory is in the loft space ofsomeone's rundown house with a maximum head room of six feet in the centre which is OK unless you are six foot three inches! I cannot fault the welcome and suspect (make that hope) that the evening meal will be excellent. [The evening meal was excellent and despite my earlier snobishness this will do down as one of the better gites.]

Unlike Spain the Via Podiensis relies on GR65 signage but France does provide information boards. This one shows my last two days, especially that I am down to under 400m and on the two thirds you can't see here the display shows I will bump along at this elevation for a while now.

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