July 17, 2008

Day 34: 17 May- Eauze to Nogaro

There were signs that I was coming closer to the day when I would have to cross the mountains...and that was kinda scary ;-)
The advance of summer was showing with the increasing growth on the vines (though this photo does not reveal how very muddy it was walking near the vineyards this day!)
New architectural styles showed I was moving further south
and the ground was becoming much flatter.

In the gite in Eauze I shared a room with some lovely young Czech students but I am afraid that their footwear was not really adequate for the muddy path today and they retreated, perhaps to take a faster route via the road.

I had lunch on the porch at Eglise de l'Hopital, next to graves, but they were surrounded with roses so it was amazingly pleasant!

I have to say I found Nogaro to be the most missable town I passed through in France, except for its gorgeous Romanesque church. There is a long main street, without any real square, and it seemed to lack the friendly heart in so many other French towns. Accordion music was blaring as I passed down the main street but when I tried to find its source I realised it was the canned variety from loudspeakers.

And my gite was also in the weird category - a half-pi gite. It was on the outskirts of town. I had a gorgeous big room, well decoratedbut although the plumbing was new, it didn't all work right. An English couple arrived and had the same view as me that something about the atmosphere just never quite added up. The Englishman saw evidence of drug use in the kitchen
so I guess that explained things. And the gite communal was reportedly no better really as it was next to a motorsport track, and engines roared all day......
Somehow Nogaro was that kind of a town.

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