<sorry about that... touched the screen in the wrong place and swoosh the blog post was on its way>
I think that I was in the midst of saying that I felt a little out of place in the refectory, surrounded by people radiating one or the other variants of devotion that I find hard to describe but easy to recognize. However, clearly neither Reinhard nor Russell were affected in the slightest... at least judging by the two liters of red wine that they ordered and (with a little help from Thomas and Valentin) consumed with lunch (which was, by the way, very tasty)!
Afterwards we climbed a steep trail -- appropriately enough a Via Dolorosa with 15 stations -- to a pass to the north, arriving at the top hot, sweaty, and (I suspect) in some cases more tired than would have been the case without wine at lunch ;-). Shortly afterwards we noticed that Reinhard had begun to lag behind dramatically. When asked he said that he was OK, but wanted to take photographs of the huge vistas and lovely countryside. So we split into two groups -- Reinhard and the rest, who were more interested in finishing the hike earlier rather than later.
There remained a long and increasingly dusty descent into a wide valley, crossing a busy road and the railway line from Gap to Briançon, and then a shorter but even less enjoyable ascent of 4km or so along a moderately busy road to the very nice hotel that was our destination for the night.
About an hour later Reinhard limped in, having developed serious and deep blisters on the bottom of at least one foot: his hike, at least for now, was over.
Sent from my iPhone
