Saturday April 10 - Bordeaux-Cayac
Decided on trip at short notice looking at sections of the Tours route. Thought about flying to Paris, but the timings were poor, so to Bordeaux instead, flying bmibaby from Manchester.
Cloud pretty well whole flight, so no views. Flight 40 minutes late and slow getting through customs, but still just in time for 16.00 bus into city centre. To tourist office for list of hotels (which also includes a reasonable map of the city centre), and then headed south for Gradignan and Cayac.
The city council had recently waymarked a Compostelan route along the rue St James (see Wednesday), but I was unaware of this and just headed south along the main rue Ste Catherine, now one of the main shopping thoroughfares, though my progress was impeded somewhat by a small ‘manifestation’ by a group of Kurds. Once past the pedestrianised area, the obvious route is straight along the main road, but I detoured along parallel side-streets, roughly following the route of bus line G. This was quieter but still not very interesting or attractive: town centres can be attractive walking, but suburbs rarely are. There are no waymarks here.
I passed a restaurant called the Relais de Compostelle, and at Gradignan there is also a Clos St Jacques old folks home. It was getting dark when I got to Cayac (where there is supposed to be a pilgrim refuge) and there was no sign of life, so I returned to the centre of Gradignan and took a room in a hotel there.
Dinner in a Spanish restaurant up the road: tapas and lamb - which seemed vaguely appropriate.
12km