Saugues to Domaine de Sauvage (Le Sauvage)

This day would take us just under 20 kilometres on a steady uphill climb for only a total of about 330 metres. We thought it would be an easier day and in some ways it was.

Last night the gîte in Saugues was run by the mairie - the city hall folks - with strict rules about what we could and couldn't do. No boots or poles past the front door, no backpacks on beds, "bend your blankets when you are finished with them", sweep the floor, empty the garbage, clean up after yourself, don't leave dishes in the drying rack etc. Maybe because of that the place was clean and nice and we enjoyed our stay. It's for sure that everyone is very concerned about bedbugs and have put whatever they think will work in place to try to prevent them from entering their gîtes. Although I know it's not necessarily connected, we have found most places to be spotlessly clean.

We ate dinner at a bar last night with our roommate Jean-Pierre and a young woman from Switzerland he was 'protecting' on her walk, Sabrina. They are enjoyable and we enjoyed a huge omelette, salad and some Spanish wine.

Our walk today started out very pleasantly. The views were pastoral and pleasant although the actual walk is between two barb wire fences all day. Even the forests are protected with barb wire. This has been common and will continue at least for several days. Our walk today is at altitudes between 963 and 1292 metres so we are definitely up in colder country. It is very mucky underfoot and lots of large rocks, often with a little creek running down the path. The rough ground makes it much harder walking than you would otherwise expect. It started snowing awhile before we arrived but it didn't seem significant at the time.  This is farm country and many of the paths are through the farmlands and are therefore quite dug up by the large farm equipment. As we arrived at the new gîtes at Domaine du Sauvage we had to pass through about 50 feet of mud that was 6or 8 inches deep with the ruts full of water - such a welcome but what can they do? They live with that all season I guess.

The gîte has a huge accueil (welcome and reception area) which also serves as a dining area for about 50 people. It very much has the feel of churning people through although I imagine it feels even more like that when you're them!  There were about 42 of us there that night. Dinner was lamb stew and potatoes - bland but there was lots of it and it was hot and welcome. Cheese was served afterwards as has been common with our meals. On this particular night I didn't care for the cheeses but have we ever had some wonderful cheeses in France. There is no comparison to the very processed cheeses we get in Canada. Our room was very clean and convenient but completely closed off from any source of air. That seems common here and is a bit difficult for our fresh-air Canadian minds.

Half-way along our journey today and at a period when the sun was still shining, we passed through a spot called Le Falzet. There is a gîte there which also has a pique-nique area so we decided to stop and eat our food. It was really cold but we sat down at the tables provided to eat our tuna and bread. The lady did sell coffee and other drinks so we knocked on her door and asked for two cafés au lait. She brought us out two large bowls of coffee that were delicious and just what we needed to get warm. She also offered to let us sit in the barn with the hay and farm equipment so we would be out of the wind. So we sat there, munching our food, drinking our wonderful coffee and talking to two very cute family dogs. She had set up a large plastic table and chairs for just these occasions it seems and they had a very nice little toilette inside as well. I was wishing we had planned to stay there but we already had our reservation at Domaine du Sauvage.

Yesterday and the earlier part of today we noticed that the fields had thousands of little white crocuses in them. Very lovely.

A wonderful café au lait stop at the cheese farm.