At the start of our ten-day house sitting assignment here in the Gers, we mapped out an excursion program for each day – using the weekly markets as a selection criterion for each day. The other criterion was that the ’round trip’ for each day should be less than 100Km. (More about that in a follow up post about our hire car).

These are some of the treasures we found.

BARBATON LES THERMES

This was such a different town to walk around, and yet it was only 20Km away from where we are staying.

It was different because it looked much newer, and because there were palm trees and architecture that reflected a strong Spanish influence.

And it had a big one of these…

It is a popular tourist attraction because of this, but originally it was because of its natural spa, (hence the word “thermes“), which was famous and well known back in Roman times.

But there are parts of it that look more like what we are used to seeing around here.

Of course we were here because of the markets, and this time we bought a dozen oysters (which worked out at $6 AUD), and two bottles of local wine from an elderly woman who owns the Domaine Caude, or vineyard. It was good to practise my French again while we chatted to her. Since we left Fenouillet there have been few opportunities to do so. The French neighbours who live very close to the owner of the house we are caring for, do not like her, and hence do not like us. Every time we drive past their home to go for a trip in the car, they turn away so they don’t need to make eye contact.

The streets were wider too.

ÉAUZE

Pronounced (ayoze) – is not necessarily considered a major tourist town, but it the closest large town to where we are staying – only 11 Km away.

It has a very nice town square, but this is not used for the weekly market like in most other villages. Possibly because it is too small. The weekly market is held about 400m from here on a much larger and flatter space. During our visit we recognised many of the stall holders from the other markets we have been to. I am sure they recognised us too as we were wearing the same clothes and our little dog was attracting lots of attention from other male dogs.

I’m unsure if you have noticed in all the (possibly too many ???) photos of these French villages, that the colour scheme seems to be mostly grey and beige.

MONTRÉAL-DU-GERS

This is only 5 km from where we are staying and it is a Gascon bastide town where the side streets lead to the central square – surrounded by arcades and timber-framed houses. Underneath these arcades are the restaurants and bars and the tourist office. But before we got there, the side street was blocked by this delivery.

We had to wait until the butcher had not only unloaded some of these carcasses, but he also cut some in half and only took what he wanted.

Montréal (du Gers) is listed as one of the “most beautiful village of France”. It was hard to get a good photo of the square so I took this photo of one of the side streets. I actually did not think it was prettier than some of the other villages we have been to around here that didn’t have this classification.

It was down here we met a very nice elderly French woman, Madame Zago, who was selling some of the local wines, including the Armagnacs she makes at the Domaine de Cassagnaous.

During our (slow) conversation in French – I explained to her that I did not like Armagnac.

She said I obviously had not tasted a good one. She then pointed to all the medals she had won for her Armagnac and explained that you had to warm the spirit in the glass by holding it for awhile, to then take a very small sip and swirl it around in your mouth before firstly swallowing and then inhaling. She then said that the second and subsequent sips were wonderful.

Mick was keen to try one of her medal winning Armagnacs and asked to buy a small 50mL bottle (for €10), but Madame Zago would have none of that.

“Not enough” she said.

I was starting to think Mick was being ‘conned’ by pretty young woman to buy expensive wines, but Mme Zago, who was charming, was at least 75 years old, convinced Mick to buy a 350mL bottle for €35.50.

We both tasted it and chose the 1980 vintage, even though the 1982 had won more prizes.

We enjoyed a glass of this each evening until it ran out, making sure we followed the instructions Mme Zago had given us.

I felt very grown up!!

VIC-FEZENSAC

It was a longer drive to get to this village, and I did get us lost on the way home. But we looked at that as a positive: Mick got to practice his map reading skills (which are very good), and we got to see some new countryside. Most of the roads Mick found me though were tiny and I was glad not to pass any vehicle coming the other way.

This green dam was an odd sight on one of the roads we found ourselves on.

It was at Vic-Fezensac markets that I found the best treasure though…..

……..  Having been away from Australia for 14 weeks now, this was the first time we’ve seen this for sale.

I paid a handsome sum for it too – €6.80 (almost $11AUD).

Tomorrow we head to Auch for the night and to return the hire car, before catching the train to Montpellier.

We have a house sit booked in Montpellier in June and we really had no intention to stay or visit there beforehand, as we head to our third house sitting assignment.

That was until …..

……. letters arrived from the French Government summoning us there for appointments on Tuesday 19 March.