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Bruniquel

#my travels #personal #Bruniquel #Southern France

Bruniquel Village - Ice Cream Shop.

Third Walking Day - Bruniquel to Puycelsi

Last night dinner was in a room with a nice view of the rooftops of the lower village.

A local cat wandered by the open window but backed away when I started to take its picture. Too bad, I had chicken for dinner, more than I could eat.

I started by wandering up through Bruniquel in the early morning. It’s another nice town, but pretty quiet early in the morning, and in the off season.

Breakfast is a standard French breakfast: a croissant, some bread, butter, jams, sometimes yogurt, juice and coffee. Frequently the coffee is served country French style in a large bowl.

Today was a short walking day, only 9 miles, but of course there was a 800 ft hill to get over in the middle of it plus another 400 foot hill and a 300 foot climb to town at the end, so a total of 1850 feet of climb and a bunch of descent between the climbs. There were some occasional nice views with some fall color on the way up the big hill.

Then it was into the woods with little views and up and down rocky trails for the rest of the day. It stayed cloudy so there wasn’t much scenery.

I got to Puycelsi in the early afternoon which was a nice change. With only 9 miles I wasn’t quite as tired and sore, so I was able to get out and look around town before dinner. It’s a very pretty village sitting on top of a promontory above cliffs. So great views all around.

The interior of the local church was nice. The outside is simple and crowded between other buildings.

It’s a Saturday so there are locals weekending in the area and the town wasn’t as dead as some others.

It’s still clearly after the season though. Probably half of the restaurants aren’t open and the others aren’t busy, neither are the hotels. It’s really remarkable. This is probably one of the best seasons. It was very hot over the summer, and now that the weather is pleasant and the trees are changing there are few people here.

Speaking of few people the trails are empty! I can walk for hours without seeing another person. Today there were probably a dozen total, and them all doing little day walks. This was the busiest day so far.

#bruniquel #puycelsi #france #tarn

Second Walking Day - Vaour to Bruniquel

I had a great breakfast, and then Nathalie offered to drive me past the first uninteresting part of the day’s walk. Since this is supposed to be one of the harder days even before the extra uphill to get back to town, I accepted! Then I screwed it up and left my trekking poles beside the front door and she had to drive back to her house, get the poles and drive back to the new starting point again. (After explaining to her husband the duplicate trip to help the clueless walker.)

But the start of the walk was long a path under trees and between moss covered walls along the top of an escarpment with occasional views across the valley between the trees. It was a magical section.

The valley filled with fog as the sun came up.

Soon there was a small settlement down below with a church ducking in and out of the fog.

But eventually the magic had to end and it was another rocky trail down to the river below. There really isn’t much soil on the highlands and the trails wear down to the limestone. The irregular limestone teams up with broken bits of stone to make a trail where you have to pick your footing with each step, avoiding the slicker sloping bits and the rolling chunks in-between. So the downhill sections while not as tiring as the uphill ones are not much faster.

As always after crossing the river at the bottom of the hill its time to head back up the other side; this time to the fortress town of Penne. The fort was built precipitously on a rock outcropping. Which made it very defensible. But it looks like there was not much other reason to build there and the surrounding town still looks pretty medieval, with very small houses. While other towns flourished with trade and industry Penne seems to have stalled as a medieval fortress town.

The castle is apparently not in good shape and I didn’t pay to go in, in part because I really needed to keep moving.

So it was time to go back down to the river and up the bluff on the other side. Nathalie had warned me about a particularly steep section of trail that could be easily avoided by doing the road switchback, which I did. Judging from the amount of elevation gain on the switchback the trail would have been a bear, something I really didn’t need.

On top of the bluff it was dry scrub and rock for several miles. I was glad it wasn’t a hot summer day walking through that.

Then another rocky trail down to the river and across to climb up to Bruniquel, a much richer town than Penne. By the time I got up to the hotel I was pretty beat again, so i headed for the shower and didn’t walk on up to the fortress. Maybe I’ll do that in the morning.