Gréalou to Mas de Jontille

We arrived at Gréalou without a reservation in the hope that there would be a place for us. Luckily there was although there isn't really a need for reservations quite yet. We were greeted by the friendly smile of José (pronounced Shosé) who invited us in and showed us around. Our gîte was L'Atelier des Volets Bleus and was advertised as the house of an artist which it truly was. Some people we already knew were there, including our American friend Linda, an Australian couple, a French woman Jacqueline and a bit later a Brazilian couple so we could actually have some real conversations with people.

The owner of the house, Ester, a Swiss woman soon arrived and began to entertain us while José, who was serving a stint as a hospitalero cooked dinner. Ester speaks English in an adorable broken way and is very charming as she well knows. She flitted around like a bird entertaining us all with stories and making sure that everyone was included. In awhile she played her diatonic accordian for us while we munched on olives and sausage and drank the various beverages of our choices. We sat out in the sun until dinner at 7:30 while she entertained us.

Esther's artwork around the house is very reflective of her personality. Her paintings are bold and colourful and look to be done quickly. Her lines are simple and sparse but do capture the essence of various personalities. Her walls are decorated with little leaves and flowers in the corners and the various spaces are divided by long airy curtains. Even in the sleeping quarters which were in reality just one big room, the airy curtains divided the room into sections which gave an illusion of privacy and coziness.

The meal was not great but it was warm and  generous. We were all charmed and Ester made a point of saying how grateful she was that we and other passing walkers stayed, and made it possible for her to stay in her little house. Not surprisingly, since she had an opinion about everything, Ester had opinions about where we should be staying depending upon how far we wanted to walk. In our case she thought we should stay at Mas de Jontille and reservations were made for us with the help of Jacqueline the French woman.

Our walking day seemed to be all ups and downs as usual - up a 100 metres, down a hundred, up and down another hundred, and finally down about 150 as we dropped down into Cajarc for lunch after about 10.5 kilometres. But as it turned out we were too early for lunch and so decided to get a sandwich at the patisserie and have a coffee. Since we were still there, after chatting with a couple of British ex-pats, our Brazilian acquaintances, our American friend and a Columbian woman, we early regretted our choice as we saw the delicious looking omelettes and salads arrive at the tables of others. Lesson soon to be learned but as it happened we did exactly the same thing the next day.

Somewhere along here we were very impressed with the plaid skies (see pictures below). It was about another 250 metres up and a bit down along another 8 or 10 kilometres before we were to find our gîte. But as we came up to it we found our names on a blackboard at the gate which was really a very nice welcome. The gîte was clean and the owners were friendly and once again we were not allowed to take our sleeping bags, boots or backpacks upstairs. It seems that sheets, pillowcases and blankets are consistently provided in France and some people do not even bring a sleeping bag.
We were  given an appertif by the owners - a rosé wine mixed with a grapefruit juice syrup - very tasty. And we got to use a washing machine for the first time and to hang our clothes on a clothesline so that was a treat. Our dinner was cooked by a 71 year old French gentleman from Versailles who said he loved to cook.

Note the solar panel at the gîte in Mas de Jontille in the bottom picture. These is becoming more and more common in gîtes and albergues across France and Spain as alternate sources of heat and hot water.