Day 18 - Gaillac to Castres - France, Top to Bottom

May 12, 2023

Day 18 - Gaillac to Castres

My French continues to be a source of entertainment to Doug and Donna. Last night for dinner I asked for a “une table pour trois”. The waiter rattled off something in French and after seeing my deer in the headlights look, said “you speak English, right?”. Then she proceeded to ask us in English if we wanted to sit at a tall table, or short one, a question that had never come up in my beginning French podcasts. She talked to us in English after that. When I said I’d like “un verre de vin rouge”, she said “Oh, we’re going to do French”, but continued to talk in English.

At breakfast, I complimented our host Frederick on the excellent breakfast, stating “c’est délicieux”. This elicited the same response that I have received every time I have used the phrase, by Frederick attempting to correct my pronunciation of délicieux. Delisuuuu he said. Delicsuuuu I responded. This was repeated multiple times with apparently no progress being made, then Frederick spelled délicieux for me, as if knowing how to spell it would somehow help. When that didn’t help, he began to spell it out with his finger on the table. Eventually he gave up hope, and we said our goodbyes.

We left Gaillac riding through the weekly Friday market. The market covered multiple streets and squares where you could buy most anything, and people were doing just that. After leaving the town, the day started on country roads going through some nice towns before finishing on a 26-mile segment of a rail trail or voie verte as they are called here. The highlight of the day was lunch in Albi where they had a very impressive cathedral that was part of or associated with the town’s Abby. We’ve poked our heads in a lot of churches and cathedrals at this point, but this one took the cake. It was very large, built entirely of brick, and the inside was over the top ornate. The pictures give you an idea, but don’t show everything as you could only see half of it without paying museum admission.

The weather today was great most of the day with an exception of the hour when it rained hard and we ended up soaked and muddy when we arrived at our hotel in Castres.

One of several nice small towns passed through in the morning

Looking for lunch before visiting the cathedral

Sainte-Cécile Cathederal was impressive to say the least.

The detailed painting covering every inch of wall and ceiling was breathtaking.

I thought the blog needed another picture of a tree tunnel. Second half of day was on this rail-traill

And then it began to rain. The hardest rain of the trip lasted about an hour. We arrived at our hotel soaked and muddy.

But the rain stopped for last hour, enough time to snap a few more photos.

Picture of canal through Castres, our stop for the night.

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Today's ride: 48 miles (77 km)
Total: 872 miles (1,403 km)

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Scott AndersonI enjoyed your discourse on language frustrations. I’m tired of asking for a carafe d’eau in France or a calice di vino rosso in Italy and receiving a blank stare or perplexed look.
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1 year ago

Scott AndersonHey, you’re just a day behind Suzanne Gibson! She and Janos spent the night in Castres the previous night.
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1 year ago