Camino Stage 1 - Day 10

 Day 10: Chateauroux - Paris: Turning for home.

When planning the start of this pilgrimage, I decided to give myself a morning's rest before heading home. So I had a leisurely breakfast and then headed off to explore Chateauroux.

Jardin Publique

Eglise Saint-Martial

The old town was delightful, the modern (19c and later) less so. I wanted to go to mass. In a town full of ancient churches (Saint-Martial was the ancient parish church) only two 19C basilicas are still functioning. All the ancient churches were locked.

I hadn't reckoned on the crowd at Saint-André, celebrating a first communion for a crowd of youngsters all dressed in white albs. The music was a single cantor with organ accompaniment, but the 'hymns' were not my kind of thing at all, and the congregation clearly did not know them, nor the refrains for parts of the liturgy. It was the kind of event where explanation outbalanced liturgy. I gave up after 45 minutes. A quiet low mass in an ancient church would have done me fine.

My lovely hosts, Sylvie and Daniel Flamand, had invited me to stay for lunch with them and their doctor friend, Stéphane. I was treated to a wonderful leisurely French Sunday lunch.

My train to Paris was an hour and ten minutes late, stuffed to the gunnels, and our carriage's aircon had broken down and it was like a sauna. But we got into the Gare d'Austerlitz by 6.30. The station is undergoing a major refurbishment and was chaos inside, but its terminus building is very handsome. 

I'm tucked into a hotel for the night, and, God willing, will be home by lunchtime tomorrow. I will do another post about some of my reflections on this experience as a whole.