Stage 3: Le Bouchet St. Nicholas to Pradelles, France
Another skimpy breakfast and I am starving! Landos is 6.5km/4 miles from Le Bouchet and we decided to stop there and buy bread and ham to make sandwiches. Today was going to be another 21km/13 miles and I need food! A fairly easy trail to Landos and we got there in no time at all. Into the boulangerie for a breautiful, crusty loaf of bread sliced by Madame for us, and ready to shop for inards. Next door, four huge slices of ham and two cokes. Hot, sunny, hot, sunny, up, down, up, down through pastures.
With no shade anywhere, we plopped down on the gravel trail around noon under a few lonesome trees for shade. Made sandwiches, drank coke and walked another 1-1/2 hours (seemed like an eternity) into a valley, arriving in Pradelles around 2:00 pm. The Hotel de L'Arche was right on the main drag with doors open and absolutely no one in the hotel.
Transbaggage had delivered the suitcases (tucked in a corner) and we just plopped into a chair, took off boots (we both have blisters on soles of feet the size of Idaho potatoes), moaned and groaned for a while and waited for someone to show up. (You'd moan and groan too after walking the equivalent of a marathon in two days.)
After an hour's wait with no one arriving, we changed into Tevas and limped into Pradelles to explore the ancient town. The tourist office was closed. Walked around the four-block area. Noted the commemoration plaque dedicated to Jeanne de Verdette who saved the town from occupation in olden days, the war memorial, fountain and ancient houses and limped back to the hotel hoping someone was there.
Nada... and disgusted, I walked behind the reception desk, looked at the reservation book and found our name and room number. Voila! Took the key and started dragging the bags up two steep, curvy flights of stairs. A wonderful hot bath and even though we didn't feel like new people, we certainly smelled a lot better....
