Short summary -- saints and martyrs.
The saints being encountered at Notre Dame de Laus, one of the top pilgramage sites in France, and the martyr being Reinhard Sattinger as will become clear below.
We were in no hurry to depart from our yurtish paradise, and since Notre Dame de Laus, where we planned to have lunch, was not far away, we also had no need to depart early. So, we ambled off around 10AM.
The day was... well, probably hot, but to be honest, I'm so used to heat by now that unless it is extreme I'm not overly bothered. We walked a while along a quiet road through fields and forest, then up an ever steeper and ever less well marked trail to the Pas de Lièvre (Pass of the Hare). There we found out why the markings had gotten so sketchy -- the trail down to the sanctuary was quite precipitous, and my guess is that the Church wanted to avoid too many pilgrims arriving, or rather trying to arrive, by that route.
However, experienced hikers that we are, we came down without misadventure, after having enjoyed almost a bird's eye view of the sanctuary (photo to be posted shortly).
As we arrived coming down, Reinhard and Valentin arrived coming up, having speed hiked for three hours from their B&B in Ventrols, and we all went in to lunch. I must say that I felt a little out of place in the refectory, surrounded by a mixture of older couples and groups, and younger families, all radiating (at least to my eyes) one or the other variants of
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