Arblade-le-haut ( just west of Nogaro)
We were in a gorgeous huge old house two days ago. Wendy and I were put in the Rose Room. The dining room could accommodate 28 diners but there were just 4 of us at the table. Our host, Christian, gave us a glass of Floc as an appetizer with potato chips because he said it was important to have something salty with it. He then served us a wonderful creamy butternut squash soup. I wanted 2 big helpings it was so good. The veggie course was a plate of his own tomatoes sliced and sprinkled with basil and parsley, all from his garden. This was followed by a pork casserole with prunes and cooked in a wine sauce served with rice. Dessert was an apple tart that I could taste the Armagnac in. Lots of a very good dark red wine on the table to go with the meal. Christian will be closing this Gite, called L'Arbladoise, in the next few days as it is too costly to heat in the winter. He opens again in April. He says in the summer it's lovely there with all the gardens and his in-ground pool. But we seem to be at the end of the walking season and places are closing as we pass through.
Last night we stayed in Aire-sur-L'Adour at the Maison du Pelerins. A great place with a very friendly host who spends his winters in Burkino Faso. He welcomed us in and gave us cold drinks and had a tray full of sweets on the table. What a treat! No dinner though, so we went out for a restaurant dinner. It was a bit of a disappointing meal compared to the good meals we have been served at places with demi-pension (dinner and breakfast). We think that the host and hostess always want to show off the region's food and we are the very grateful recipients. This particular restaurant, one of only a few in town open on a Monday evening was indifferent. Sundays and Mondays it is hard to find anything open, even to buy milk and bread.
Today we arrived about 1:30 to this little town of Miramont-Sensacq. On our map it showed a couple of choices for accommodation, a pharmacy and a food store. Usually if there is any store then there would also be a bar where we could have our coffee and a glass of wine later in the afternoon. Well it looks like the map was wrong! No bar, nowhere for coffee. There is a food store but it was open in the morning before lunch and will not reopen again until 5pm and just for two hours. We can't see any pharmacy or any store for that matter.
Town of Miramont-Sensacq, (look carefully at the horizon for the Pyrenees)
Tonight's accommodation is at a Gite Communal. It is run by the town and there is a volunteer here who checked us in. He lives 50 km away but stays upstairs for a week at a time when he does a shift as hospitalero. He will make our dinner tonight and we can help if we wish. There is one other pilgrim expected later today so I imagine he will be put into the same room as we are in. There are 3 bunk beds in the room. There is a small washroom with 2 showers and a sink, then 2 toilets in separate rooms. We have paid 10€ each for our bed and then our dinner and breakfast is by donation. Only the 2nd time we have had that so this option is not all that common. It will be interesting to see what we have for dinner.
Every day it's a surprise to see what the town is like and what our accommodation will be. We had thought we would have more opportunity to sit at a bar on the street drinking French wine. Today we could see the Pyrenees in the distance so I think we only have about a week of walking left before we arrive in St Jean Pied-de-Port. 130 km should do it.
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