It rained the night before I left, seemed to let up, then continued to rain, getting heavier at times, then becoming a sprinkle again a the way into Barran There was a fair amount of road-walking, which I don't usually like, but it has its advantages when it rains and the ground is muddy. I ran into one fast-walking French couple who started in Toulouse, but they quickly outpaced me. Then a slower group of French walkers, who had started in Castres for their annual portion of the Voie'Arles, joined me they were slower and called themselves "the snails." They would walk with me as far as Barran. As we approached Barran, we could see the village and its church with the helical spire and one of the women offered to take my photo.
Barran is a bastide town and surely one of the most beautiful villages in the Gers, but less appealing in the rain, than in the sunshine. The church of Saint-Jean-Baptiste (13th-16th century) was closed, and getting the key was too complicated, so I just took photos from the outside. It is one of about 30 such churches remaining in Europe with that kind of twisted spire.
The bastide town, founded in 1279, one boasted two pilgrim hospitals in the Middle Ages.
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