Day 6: June 9: Etiang >> Conques (35km)

TODAYS PHOTOS

After our brief vacation day yesterday, we needed to catch up on our itinerary, so I can catch my later flight to Munich (July 3). But we had to pay for our vacation as this made us walk late into the day, under a hot sun.

I have not slept well the past two nights, think it must be the shared rooms and getting used to it, so I have only been getting 3-4 hours/ night.

The day was beautiful and fresh and we had a challenging day in the mountains, ups and downs - both challenging in their own right.

Today we ended in Conques, a big stop along the way, and are staying in the monsatery with about 90 other pilgrims. There was a pilgrim meal tonight, followed by a blessing mass and music in the
cathedral.

Along the way, I read the history of the town and their patron saint, whose name slips my mind right now, but she was sainted for her work in healing eye maladies. Anyway she died - of course and was buried in her home town in Northern France, and years later when she was sainted, her bones being valuable RELICS, she was dug up and kept by her hometown church. As her work was done in Conques, they sent an undercover monk spy to her town to join the church, and after 10 years, he earned their trust and was allowed to guard the relics, which he stole and took to Conques. It was the popularity of the relics which earned the city enough money to grow and make a grand monsatery and church. It was the Disneyland of their time.

It was weird reading this story and thinking about the history of the pilgrimages and how the church used these to take money from people to grow in power and size. It is a bit discomforting to follow this "spiritual" route and think back to how so much of the motivation was commercial and took advantage of so many.

So not much has changed in a thousand years....something to ponder along the route...

We also had to say goodbye to several of our pilgrim friends as this was their stopping point.

Bon Nuit!