What I didn’t mention yesterday, preferring to forget it, was that on arrival at Meyruis my phone’s Sim card wasn’t working. I had not made a record of the hotel I had booked, and didn’t know which one it was, most of the town’s I’ve stayed at have one or two hotels, so it’s not a problem remembering which one, but Meyruis is a bit of a tourist centre and has around 10 hotels. Ususally I could look it up on the internet, but with no 3G or 4G on the phone – stuck. I sat down for half an hour and tried to gather my wits – had I made a booking, or just thought about it and forgotten? I was tired and a bit disorientated.
I had an idea it might have been a “Logis” brand hotel, so walked into one that I saw on the main street. They didn’t have a booking for me, so I took a room anyway, if I had booked elsewhere, so be it, I would write-off the cost to experience.
This morning the manageress explained to me that I had actually booked a room at the other Logis hotel, the more expensive one, the manager of that one had phoned her the previous night. They had waived that cost and only charged me for the current one, (plus this one had the good restarant).
Top marks to Logis for helping the hapless British tourist.
Robert Louis Stevenson had much to say about the religious wars of 1703 to 1710, 150 years before he wrote “Travels with a Donkey”. He is a dyed-in-the-wool scottish presbyterian protestant, but he likes talking to people and sees worth on both sides deciding that for most people “religion does not repose upon a choice of logic; it is the poetry of the man’s experience, the philosophy of the history of his life”.
Then downhill 13km on the windy side of the hill, I arrive in l’Esperou half frozen.