{"id":4255,"date":"2023-06-22T17:31:45","date_gmt":"2023-06-22T17:31:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=4255"},"modified":"2025-12-24T22:28:03","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T22:28:03","slug":"10-nearly-time-to-head-north","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=4255","title":{"rendered":"10. NEARLY TIME TO HEAD NORTH."},"content":{"rendered":"

Our time in the deep South is coming to an end.\u00a0 But not quite!<\/p>\n

We had poor memories of Fumel.\u00a0 Poor in two ways.\u00a0 First, that the town was unimpressive from a visitor’s perspective.\u00a0 And second, our memories are less than perfect.\u00a0 So, it’s time to check.\u00a0 But on the way, as we passed Duravel, we saw a restaurant that we had visited in the past.\u00a0 Restaurant D’Family & Co..\u00a0 Right next to the Mairie.\u00a0 With a convenient car park.\u00a0 But it’s a bit early for lunch, so we had coffees, reserved a table for later and went for a walk down to the river.\u00a0 This proved our memories were a little adrift.\u00a0 It’s over four kilometres to the river.\u00a0 So we didn’t quite make it!\u00a0 In fact we didn’t even get as far as the Duravel campsite which we have visited before, but not stayed at.<\/p>\n

The menu of the day with “The Family” includes a buffet starter and a cheese board.\u00a0 Either of which could easily make a meal on it’s own!<\/p>\n

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At the table next to us, there were two English couples.\u00a0 They are staying on the Duravel campsite – the one we didn’t quite walk to earlier!\u00a0 In chatting, we mentioned a few local restaurants that they might like to try.<\/p>\n

And, yes, Fumel has got a large out of town commercial centre, but the old town is disappointing.\u00a0 \u00a0The main drag is completely closed to traffic as the road surface is improved.\u00a0 No doubt with all sorts of “calming” measures.\u00a0 Every other shop is closed, for sale or for rent.\u00a0 Although, to be fair, the town still has its fair share of opticians!\u00a0 There are MUCH better places in which to spend time around here.\u00a0 Our memories on that score were not misplaced!<\/p>\n

A couple of days later, we found the two English couples from Duravel dining at Chez Jeanne when we visited with Angelique and Ingrid.\u00a0 We are now nearly on first name terms.\u00a0 Let’s call them Mr & Mrs A and Mr & Mrs B.<\/p>\n

A few days later again we heading to Montauban about 50 kms south of camp.\u00a0 After about 25 km, we paused at Montcuq for a coffee.\u00a0 And who was on the next table?\u00a0 Yep.\u00a0 Two As and two Bs.\u00a0 (Why does that make me think of Waterloo?!)<\/p>\n

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We’ve just checked the car for their tracking device – and removed it!!<\/p>\n

I know this was getting boring last time, but we now find ourselves back on the Camino trail once again!<\/p>\n

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But this time we are doing it properly.\u00a0 Not only do we have a photo of the route marker, we have also found one of the tampons!<\/p>\n

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And we have collected our first official stamp!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Proper pilgrims must\u00a0<\/strong>travel a minimum of 100 km to Santiago de Compostela, and they\u00a0must\u00a0<\/strong>receive stamps on their “Credencial” at least once a day, or twice a day if only travelling 100 km.<\/p>\n

We discovered that stamps are provided by almost every institution along the way.\u00a0 This includes hotels, auberges, churches, town halls, post offices, and even some bars and restaurants. These stamps are a badge of honour for some pilgrims, who try to get as many as possible.\u00a0 We have just the one – collected at the caf\u00e9.\u00a0 But from now on we will be much more alert!<\/p>\n

With all the faffing about with tampons and coffees, as one does, we never actually made it to Montauban.\u00a0 We settled for Cassaudes instead.\u00a0 Here we met Alice at La Table d’Alice.<\/p>\n

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After lunch on the shady terrace, we headed out for a walk along the river.\u00a0 Well, first find the perishing river!\u00a0 Following “instructions”, we ended up at the railway station.\u00a0 We took the underpass to the down line.\u00a0 Struggled across the shunting tracks and ended up at a locked gate.\u00a0 Anyway it’s too hot for this outdoors malarkey.\u00a0 Where’s the coolest place in town?\u00a0 The church, obviously.<\/p>\n

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(And, refreshingly, we have found most of them hereabouts unlocked!)<\/p>\n

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That, and a quick walk around the town centre, a purchase of some strawberries and we were off for a last swim in Angelique and Ingrid’s pool.<\/p>\n

Last minute panic.\u00a0 Someone has stolen Erik’s Internet and telephone!\u00a0 No service, no can pay for our stay by card.\u00a0 Need cash.\u00a0 However, at the 11th hour, normal phone and internet connections were restored.\u00a0 Trip to the ATM cancelled.\u00a0 It transpired that some thieving b******s had nicked the cables running under the Castelfranc bridge.\u00a0 Copper is getting to be too pricey to be left unguarded in this part of France!\u00a0 It’s \u20ac5.50 le kg today.\u00a0 Mind you, 50 m of wire at about 0.4 kg per metre would be an awkward load to carry and would only generate about \u20ac140 on the official<\/strong> market.\u00a0 Hardly worth two crooks getting out of bed for!\u00a0 Maybe there were lots of wires under the bridge, it was certainly closed for at least a day while reparations were made!<\/p>\n

The last morning on the banks of the Lot dawned misty-moisty.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

And, by 09.30 (early for us!) we were off on a six hour trip northwards…<\/p>\n

(PS\u00a0 \u00a0ABBA Waterloo?)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our time in the deep South is coming to an end.\u00a0 But not quite! We had poor memories of Fumel.\u00a0 Poor in two ways.\u00a0 First, that the town was unimpressive from a visitor’s perspective.\u00a0 And second, our memories are less… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-and-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4255"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4270,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4255\/revisions\/4270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}