the last couple of days have been an awful lot of walking by the side of busy roads. Last night I was in a town called Des Ormes; a depressed little burg surrounded by cornfields and dead sunflowers. I stayed an elegantly named place called "Hotel Cheval Blanc" (White Horse Hotel) which was comically bad except for the nice funny lady, Isabel who ran it. My room had a king and a queen sized bed and for some reason I chose the queen size to sleep in. At around 3:30am I realized that the pillow smelled like methlamine (or, as Breaking Bad fans might know, cat piss) so I moved to the king size.
It was 43e for the room, dinner and this morning's breakfast. Isabel was the only staff present and went home at 4:30. Dinner was left in the fridge and there was a microwave to zap it. BUT LET ME TELL YOU it was PHENOMENAL! Carrot salad, mushroom salad, cucumber salad and an off-the-charts delicious beets and garlic salad for cold starters followed by a succulent stew of super tender beef and carrots. Breakfast was served by Isabel herself and consisted of a croissant (you can't get a bad croissant in this country) and coffee.
The walking destination was a big town called Chatelleraut. If you ever get a chance to go there, for God's sake DON'T! It's a huge sprawling industrial town and my best description of is San Antonio meets East Berlin. The walk there itself was six hours on a narrow busy road with a speed limit of 70km/h (so everybody drove 85). When I say "on a narrow busy road" I don't mean a path beside it, or the shoulder of it. I mean on it. Finally upon reaching city limits the trail passes through an industrial park, then within meters of the sewage treatment plant.
Eventually I made it to the Tourist Office which was staffed by a couple of very nice, competent women who explained that there were two places to stay within 3km of the trail; a 3 star hotel for e100 or a 0 (zero!) star hotel for e50. I made the obvious choice to fast forward to the next stop and asked directions to the train station.
E6.8 and a half hour later I arrived here. The Best Western hotel in central Poitiers - for e50! I love it here and don't want to ever leave. Supposedly the head of John the Baptist is somewhere in town so I probably ought to spend tomorrow checking it out, right?
I also have a pretty unique blister on the ball of my left foot. I think it's a blood blister covered by a regular blister. Email me if you want a picture of it.
Anyhow, the next stop is a town called Coulombiers.
PS the picture on this post is a very cool piece of municipal artwork from a pretty little town I walked though yesterday. It's cut from a single piece of rusted sheet metal over white marble. Cool, huh?
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