Out of the mountains

The last week since my last post has mainly been spent in the mountains of the Haut Languedoc, where mobile phone service is unreliable, and WiFi almost unheard of.
Fortunately the weather had been fantastic, fine and sunny eacch day tending to getting hot in the afternoon.
This section has been by far the most difficult of my pilgrimage to date, but I have been rewarded by the most fantastic views from on high, and each day has presented a different aspect of these mountains, as you cross the ridges from one river system to another.
It's a bit similar to walking the Cinque Terre, but each days climb is in the thousands of feet, not the hundreds. Ed, an English walker, has a SatMap unit that shows a profile at the end of each day, as well as altitude climbed.  One day was 28 kms covered, with altitude gained of 4900 feet, so no wonder it took us nearly 10 hours to walk and boy, were we knackered at the end.
We have now descended down into more open, agricultural areas, and as I head towards Toulouse we are in much easier country, including 2 days along the Canal du Midi into Toulouse.
The walk has started to have a much more pilgrim feel to it, as more walkers join in for different sections, and you start to get to know the pilgrims that are keeping pace with you.  Have had some wonderful meals, with multi-lingual discussions, and much good food and wine consumed.  It's a lot harder to lose weight walking through Italy and France than it was in Spain, but we're only here once, and I don't intend to miss out on those experiences.