Pyrénées

A day of rest and we slept past 8:00 a.m. - very unusual for me. After arising in leisurely fashion, we had a petit déjeuner in the room past the bar at the left as you entered the hotel. The only thing to distinguish it from the gîte breakfasts was that the bread was toasted which was a nice change.

We wandered about the town in the morning and caught a five minute glimpse of the mountains which were soon again shrouded in fog. We were followed by the little fox-like dirty white dog that had followed us the previous day and certainly was lost. We chatted with Tom, Jane and Claire in front of their upscale gîte learning a new British phrase, “okey dokey three pigs in a pokey.” They said that at the cabin yesterday they had photographed the three sleeping pigs as a self-portrait. We followed them to a bar for an orange juice and to write a few postcards.

After more wandering, Bon and I had a peasant soup (delicious) and a salad at the bar and went back to the hotel for a nap. I awoke about three and noticed that the sun was shining. I awoke Bon to tell her I was going out to take pictures. I soon ran into our friends and after locating Bon we walked out of town towards the circle of mountains. We discussed everything from the flowers to politics and had a pleasant ramble. It began to rain and we turned back in a slight drizzle. They invited us for a glass of wine at 6:45 p.m. and we retired to the hotel.

We had another nice chat over wine in our friends’ gîte in front of a fire. Claire had almost beaten Tom at chess earlier in the day - actually stalemating him (this had been a longstanding bet along the walk and there was a question whether Claire had won). They were still at it. We talked about MacMahan and a little about Maine as well as other things including Jane's dreadlocks of 11 years. Then as dinner was served in the gîte we headed back to the hotel in a real rain.

We had a lovely roast lamb dinner with white beans. Sitting next to us were four Americans from Nevada - we had been unable to place their accent. They told us of a wonderful trail, the Rennsteig in Germany that they had walked. As we were leaving early in the morning, I settled with the Madame (218 Euro) in her wonderful office filled with stuffed animals and bearskins. We then went back to the room to pack up for the morning and to bed.

Nice to have such a slow day and a little rest. It's been an extraordinary treat to have the three traveling companions and also Alan, George and Josef. We hated to see Claire head back; we certainly enjoyed her animated company.