The French Camino offers long gaps between accommodations, pushing us to walk as many as 21 miles in a day. To avoid another day extending us beyond our comfort zone, we were booked last night in Lichos, hardly big enough to be called a hamlet.

See the photo on the left? That is where our digital map directed us for our shower, bed, dinner, and breakfast. It featured a garden shed and a parking lot. We were tired; it was at least 90 degrees. There was no sign of life, other than some colorful petunias. What now?

A text to our booking agent in England got a quick response and before we could have finished an ice cream cone, a tiny car pulled up and a much tinier old woman got out. “Bonjour!” she greeted cheerfully.

We were soon at her small home (that’s it, on the right). She spoke no English. You guessed it; we spoke little French. Let me tell you, we had an experience I never would have expected, as one extra-kind, 83-year-old woman gave us a bed, a shower, delicious three-course meal (with wine), and coffee, juice, toast, and jam in the morning. We chatted and even had a few laughs, thanks to Google translate. She told us she had lost her policeman-husband 10 years before.

In the morning, after we had said our “au revoirs,” Sue and I walked toward the French Camino. I turned around to take a last glimpse of the modest home. There stood our host, at the end of her driveway, waving.

Two days to go.