Le Puy Camino – via Podiensis: Lectoure to La Romieu

April 30, 2023

After a continental self-serve breakfast, Susan and I headed out. I was starting my walk towards La Romieu and Susan was hoping to stop by the Chapelle des Carmélites de Lectoure in time for the morning mass before leaving Lectoure. We would meet up in La Romieu at the end of the day.

The descent out of Lectoure snaked through the ancient wall that used to surround the city.

It was another misty, cloudy day and with all the rain that had fallen the previous day I was soon to discover a trail ladden with significant mud. This mud is like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It must have a high clay content because it is very sticky. Much of the day was spent stopping to scrap built up mud from my boots!!

I did not take any photographs after leaving Lectoure until I reached the village of Marsolan. In the middle of the traffic circle in town, there was an iron cross. I loved the chicken that sat upon the top of the cross!

Between Marsolan and La Romieu, I encountered much of the muddy trail. It was quite a slog to get through. Little did I know there would be more to come (and much worse!) in the days ahead.

Today was a very light day for photographs as I was concentrating mostly on getting through the mud. I remember walking down a very secondary road not far from La Romieu when I saw a sign that intrigued me.

What luck to stumble upon a botanical garden!! I was in heaven until I realised that the garden was closed the day I was walking through this area. So disappointing! The garden has an interesting history. It was developed on land owned by the renowned French botanist Gilbert Cours-Darne. The collection of plants that are nourished on this land in Gascony were collected by Cours-Darne from all corners of the world. He bequeathed his land in 1992 to Véronique and Arnaud Delannoy. Cours-Darne felt this couple had a love of the land and a desire to continue his project to maintain the garden and open it to the public. Véronique and Arnaud Delannoy and members of their family still operate the garden to this day Here’s a link to the full story of how the garden came to be.

Shortly after leaving the garden, I arrived in La Romieu. The GR65 enters the village via the Parc de l’Olivier à La Romieu. It’s a nice green space with play areas for children and a commanding view of the Collégiale de La Romieu – a 14th century historical monument and UNESCO site. The village was originally founded by two monks who had just returned from a pilgrimage and the name La Romieu means “pilgrim” in the Occitan dialect of Gascony. That’s really cool!!

La Romieu is a pretty little village and as I entered the center of the village I quickly spotted a cafe and decided to rest and enjoy a beer before looking for my lodging for the night.

I settled at an outside table and enjoyed the blue sky that finally appeared!! The establishment where I grabbed my refreshment is L’Etape d’Angeline. It is a cafe, bar and restaurant that also has pilgrim accommodations. I had hoped to stay here but they were full when I was booking my reservations a few days in advance.

There is a fun legend associated with this town and I wish I had known about it when I was there. The village has a curious nickname – “the village of the cats.” And apparently throughout the town there are stone sculptures of cats that were created by a local artist. Had I known, I suspect I would have wandered around the village in search of these stone cats!

The legend goes like this: During medieval times, a peasant girl named Angeline (hence the name of the restaurant!) lived in the village and had a love of cats. When a famine hit the area and food was scarce, it became necessary to survive by eating what was available and sadly the “cat” population in town started to decline. Angeline secretly made an effort to protect as many cats as she could. When the famine ended, and there was an abundance of food, the villagers realized they had a major problem. No cats meant an increasing rat population which caused problems of its own! Angeline let it be known that she had rescued some cats and they were set loose in the town to control the rats. The cats did their job and, to this day, cats are revered in the town!

When it was time to check in to our lodging, I went in search of the building. We stayed in the Chambres d’hôtes Boisson which is operated by a local artist, Christine Boisson. Her paintings filled the walls of the house and it was a nice cozy place to stay for the night. The price included breakfast but not dinner. We knew this in advance and, before leaving Lectoure, we had purchased food for dinner – noodles, veggies and some good bread and cheese. Our accommodation had a small kitchen in which we could prepare our meal and it was perfect!

When our host, Christine, stamped our pilgrim passport books I was surprised that she did not actually have a “stamp” as most accommodations did. Instead, she drew a picture in our pass book and dated it by hand. I thought the picture that she drew curious and wondered why she chose that particular item to draw. Having read now about the legend of the cats – it has suddenly become perfectly clear!! Ha!! Can you spot the “stamp” from Chambres d’hôtes Boisson??