Pilgrims on the Way

After a hasty breakfast, I left the gîte at about 7:15. There was enough light to walk, and the air was cool, but the sky was still that leaden color of yesterday. My goal was to get to my first major village – Montcuq – no later than 9:30 so I could get a proper breakfast. About fifteen minutes later, […]

The pilgrim Mass and blessing in the shabby little church of Saint-Georges de Lascabanes was, as you might suspect, a very “low church” affair, with no proper vestments and the readings done from a missalette. The priest was just as shabby as the church. He wore his stained alb over khaki clothes and trainers. No homily and absolutely no veneration […]

There is a very handsome marble Marian altar in Saint-Georges de Lascabanes, although the image of Mary has been crowned slightly askew in a way that looks almost jaunty. This altar is the only one in the entire building that is not made of wood. It bears an inscription on the side: “Jubilé 1896”. It has been allowed to become […]

The interior of the little church of Saint-Georges de Lascabanes is whitewashed, with the same lemon-colored trim I’d seen in any number of village churches in recent days. Taken as a whole, the church is mostly unremarkable, although very homey. There are just a couple of things that strike me as, well, odd.  First of all, they seem to have […]

I arrived in the village of Lascabanes (population 200) at just past one in the afternoon. It’s an odd place. Two streets look like this: narrow and medieval. You would think this is a bustling town. But once you stray from these, there are only a few scattered buildings. While I was securing lunch at the local café, the municipal […]

This is a pretty good example of most of the terrain in the eight or so kilometers after Trigodina: open country with dried grasses and small scrubby bushes. I saw very few people, other than the occasional pilgrim. As you might be able to tell from the colour of the sky, the air temperature was pretty hot. By now, it […]

I reached Trigodina at about a quarter after eleven in the morning. There wasn’t much to it – more of a hamlet than a village. If it weren’t for the sign, I might have thought it a sprawling farmstead. Needless to say, there was no café, so no elevenses for me. Date: 05 September 2023 Place: approaching Trigodina, Lot Département, […]

After the crazy climbs earlier in the day, the Camino settled down to a lovely undulating terrain. It was generally through open country with dried grasses and small scrubby bushes, but sometimes with tree cover, as here. I saw a lot of grasshoppers bouncing around the path and occasionally little lizards. The butterflies today were far less numerous than in days […]