To Castelnaudary

View Tolouse to Castelnaudary in a larger map

The journey starts with the usual casting around to reconcile two different sets of instructions and reality, to get out of town on the correct side of the canal for a path that wouldn't just end miles from a bridge. Hint:-

Canal path - a GR path on the map

Though the day started bright, but the time I'm leaving Toulouse, about 10am, it's dull, and there is dampness on the wind. The cycling is a grind with what wind there is against me, and the canal path is boring going — even when I can see past the screening bushes, there's a main road, or fields of ripening sunflowers

harvest

There is a sprinkle of rain after lunch, but it then gradually becomes brighter, but breezy (and warm and sticky, too).

A welcome bath on arrival at the otherwise undistinguished hotel, then recce for the other hotel where I have a dinner token. In the main square, they are tidying up after the weekend's cassoulet festival (supposedly invented here during the 100 years war, when the beseiged townsfolk put all their remaining food into one big pot).

There are lizards on the steps up to the high point of the town, and the footbridge over the canal; and a flaming rose sky on the way back from dinner.