Arzacq to Arthez de Bearn

Venison Cassoulet

This was a fairly unremarkable day other than the fact that my feet did not feel so tortured. The rain that has been teasing us all week showed up just long enough for us to deal with the hassle of digging out and putting on our ponchos. Dayton and I stopped into a little epicerie with a pilgrim welcome centre to have our lunch and, it turned out, to sit out the rain.

By blind good luck the variant route that Dayton had mapped out for the afternoon took us right by our gite ( which we never would have found if we'd taken the regular route). Our gite was an apartment at the back of a house and dinner was another superlative experience. Our host keeps five adorable sad-eyed hound dogs which he uses for hunting. The bounty of his hunting was offered for dinner - an amazing rich deer stew or cassoulet. Of course, it was not amazing to this vegetarian, nor was the fresh homemade smelly pate, but all the others devoured it. The repas also had plates and plates of fresh crudities, potatoes, celeriac salad, tabouleh and the de rigeur bread and wine. Oh, and all of this was preceded by our hosts version of an aperitif - whiskey neat or some anise tasting liquor. Bon appetit and bon nuit!