We’re still walking about 10 miles a day,  but as tourists! It’s hard to sit!

Changes: We arrived in Le Puy, France on Thursday and quickly celebrated, but unpacked nothing! We had shipped our one suitcase to Carcassone, France, and had a reservation at that B&B for Friday night … one night only.

Why were we moving so quickly? Our original plan was to finish our hike and then do a canal boat on the Canal du Midi, which typically requires starting on Saturdays.

It is an extraordinarily fun and relaxing thing to do … except after 3 weeks of hiking, our backs needed a break. Even though relaxing,  the canal boat line handling, the smaller bunks, etc,  seemed like more than our backs were willing to deliver, so we canceled that plan.

But, what to do with that 7 or 8 new- found days?  Too many choices …

We thought about spending a couple more nights in Carcassone, a beautiful town with a walled city,

And excellent dining (duck breast)!

Unfortunately, our host B&B was sold out! We had to move the next morning!

Staying at another place in Carcassone didn’t look promising, so we finally decided to head on to the third thing on our original list of “to do’s” on this trip:  Go to Girona,  Spain!

Girona is a Spanish community north of Barcelona and has become the European home for most non-European professional cyclists. As cycling junkies, we had to go there!  (The food and the history are also excellent! )

Staying in Girona bought us a couple of days to pull together our plans for our remaining 2 weeks. And it was beautiful!

What we knew was that we had plane tickets home, departing from Malaga, Spain (South of Spain, almost to Gibraltar) on the 3rd of October. What to do until then?

We have decided to spend about a week in Valencia, Spain, on the coast very close to town, then spend the final week in Malaga, again on the coast.

We will enjoy visiting the towns, relaxing and eating too much.

If you know us well, you know that we NEVER leave planning to the last minute. We usually have things nailed down a year in advance. Not this time.

The upside was that last-minute bookings, late September, were really reduced in price! The downside … too many choices/decisions to make in too little time!

We feel good about the plans we have but will very likely go back to our old way … plans on hand in advance.

We hope all are doing well. We miss family and friends.