Day 8 Fonteilles

Saturday 24th September and I have a 7:45am start to avoid potential rain later; and as the rain did come 30 minutes after my arrival that was good planning. I am walking along the Lot Valley so it is a different feel to previous days. The first town is Espalion and as you approach along the river Lot you get very fine views. 

For some reason I am reaching for my phone to check directions on mapy.cz like a trigger happy gun slinger though the signage remains good. This reminds me that people don't bring their phones to the dinner table even though they will be managing bookings and communicating back home.

We pass plenty of interesting chapels today.

The walnuts are ready and dropping off the trees so I have a pocket full for later. So much so one fell loudly on a tin roof as I took this photo.
After a while the route takes a climb up out of the valley floor which is fine though I expect I'll drop back down again; and yes we did drop down again.
Having dropped back to the valley floor and the river Lot I hop over the bridge to Estaing and meet up with Beth and Jed, the Americans, and chat for a while before the last 8km to my gite on a 28km day.
France has "Les Plus Beaux Villages de France" which bestows the award on deserving villages a little like Michelin awards.


From Estaing it is a demanding 300m ascent to today's accommodation which for me is a mobile home shared with others though I have the double en-suite to myself which will be a treat. On the walk here I was thinking today would have been a good day for a bit of luxury so I'll take that dedicated room; I am making an assumption that I am not sharing.

To finish today's summary I discovered some scales in an old garage I happened to find myself in and couldn't resit a weigh-in. I wasn't happy to see that I came in at just over 100kg. That is me, fully clothed with rucksack, water, and emergency food.

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