The Gers

After our culinary week in Provence we decided that it would be very sensible to spend our week in the Gers eating and drinking in moderation. Unfortunately things didn’t quite work out this way.  We were, of course, entirely blameless for continuing to indulge in such gluttonous behaviour.  It was firstly the fault of Julia and Helen – our British neighbours in Tillac - for being way too much fun and neighbourly.  It was secondly the fault of the Tillac butcher for having too much interesting produce.

Tillac is a very small village in the Gers department in the south west of France.  The historical centre is tiny and has less than 20 houses although there is a population in the many hundreds surrounding the village.  The Richards have had a cottage in Tillac for many years and it is the only one of their 7 cottages that we had not stayed in (tick).

Tillac has intact medieval towers at each end of town and you enter through an archway in one of these towers in order to reach the cottage which is located in the main street running between the two towers.  It is one of about 8 to 10 dwellings that were built in the 14^th century and which jut out over the street creating arcades.  At one point they were used as army barracks and there are connecting doors between some of the apartments that have since been boarded up.  Although the village itself is tiny it has a very good restaurant and butcher as well as a little general store.

 

 

The Gers is in the Midi-Pyrenees Region (part of pre-revolutionary Province of Gascony) and is very rural and sparsely populated.  There are lots of references to the three musketeers because the character, upon whom D’Artagnan was based, came from this region. 

Everyone within a 100km radius was claiming some part of the musketeer legend

The countryside is all rolling hills and corn fields or sunflower fields with views of the Pyrenees in the distance.  There are also many fortified towns known as bastides.

Sunflowers outside Bassoues

 

We started the week by going to a huge vide grenier (a town-wide garage sale) in the nearby bastide town of Bassoues.  It was fascinating looking at the combination of junk and precious objects that were on display.  We found a few more pairs of cuff links at attractive prices. 

 

We then took advantage of the warm weather to do a little hike around the town in the surrounding countryside.  It was very hot and pretty much remained that way for the whole week.  The Gers is apparently one of the warmest and driest regions in France.

At times the recently harvested fields looked like desert sands

 

On Monday we did a road trip starting with the well preserved Abbaye de Flaran.  It was quite interesting.  It had a working garden and there was an extremely eclectic art collection including a number of Dali sculptures.

The next site we visited was the remains of a large Roman villa at Serviac, dating from around the 4^th century.  Whilst no buildings remain standing, the excavations have uncovered fantastic mosaic floors (you'll have to indulge our passion in this regard).

 

The land around the villa is covered in grape vines

On the way we visited the beautiful little bastide town of Montreal where we sat in the town square having an impromptu picnic.  We also went to the town of Condom which is a sizable place, but it failed to excite other than the inside of the cathedral.  Note that the English word ‘condom’ does not exist in French, they use the word ‘preservatif’, which can cause all sorts of difficulties when looking for fresh food.

When we returned from our excursion Helen and Julia were sitting outside underneath the arcades enjoying the beautifully warm weather. 

They said hello to us and we learned that they were spending 6 weeks in Tillac.  They are both musicians and former teachers, who were enjoying not having to be back at work at this time of the year.  They were definitely making the most of the weather and at one point were very industriously preparing their own lavender sachets with lavender picked from the garden. They had also spent a month in Tillac last year and were full of lots of useful information about the region and the local personalities.  We heard the very amusing story of their having been invited to the opening of some new traffic calming chicanes and a fountain. Apparently it was no simple affair.  The event started at lunch time and speeches were given by ministers representing every layer of government.  The person who decided to apply for money from the European Union was particularly feted.  Hours later, when the speeches finally stopped, they thought that the event was over.  But in fact things were just beginning.  Champagne and finger food were served and the community partied well into the evening.  Every time that we drove through the chicanes and saw the fountain we felt that it was important to pay our quiet respects.

The fountain worked 12 hours a day; we never saw the Mairie open

We had been across to the local butcher in the morning and asked for some meat for beef bourguignon.  It was quite amusing as the butcher’s wife (I assume) nodded and walked off yelling ‘meat for beef bourguignon’ to her husband, who was in a back room chopping up meat.  The beef cubes appeared promptly and were delicious when Dale transformed them into beef bourguignon that evening.

On Tuesday we drove into Auch which is the major town in the region.  The old town is located on a hill running along one side of the Gers River.  In the 19^th century the most amazing steps were built leading from the river to the top of the hill.  The Cathedral was sizable and most notable for its elaborately calved timber choir stalls and mosaic floor.

This style of timber and brick is popular in the South West of France

On Tuesday night we met Julia and Helen at the restaurant (Chez Gorka), which was about 20 steps from our door, for an aperitif or two on a lovely balmy evening.  Dale and I discovered the local Floc which is a mixture of Armagnac and grape juice – yum.  After aperitifs Helen and Julia made us dinner accompanied by rather too much wine. 

The following morning we all met up again for a coffee at the market in Marciac.  This was a lovely little market in the square in the middle of town, which was surrounded by arcaded shops.  There was a particularly good cheese van where Dale was able to win lots of brownie points by complementing the serveur about her ability to estimate how much cheese to slice off for 250 grams.

In the afternoon we attempted to follow a recommended hiking route in the hope of finding some good views of the Pyrenees.  Although we did make it most of the way around the walk we got lost a couple of times and never really saw views of the Pyrenees that were any better than we had already seen.  It was also very hot and I think we arrived back in Tillac a little sunburnt and dehydrated.  We recovered by having a great meal at Chez Gorka.  I had a Basque beef stew that I really enjoyed.  I don’t think we make enough stews, probably because they take a long time to cook.  Dale had a strawberry soup for dessert that was incredibly fragrant and flavoursome. It was made from really small strawberries that we saw in markets in both the Gers and in the nearby Lot and Garonne.  It made us realise how awfully tasteless (white and dry) the strawberries can be at home.

Chez Gorka

As we were so close to the Pyrenees we thought we would set off on an excursion to see the Pont d’Espagne which is one of the famous passes that crosses into Spain.  Unfortunately the road up to the Pont d’Espagne was closed owing to repairs so we drove around some of the passes on the French side and decided to visit Pau instead. 

The building materials and architectural styles changed markedly in the Pyrenees

Col d'Aubisque is frequently featured in the Tour de France

Pau was brilliant!  It is well presented and has the impressive Chateau de Pau, where Henri IV was born. We also found a really nice blueberry tart, which we served as dessert later that evening when we had Julian and Helen over for a return dinner.

Chateau de Pau

For the record we were very close to Lourdes but had no desire to visit not even ‘just for the experience’ or to get dirty tap water to cure us of our gluttony.

We had grand plans of doing a longer hike on Friday but it was a disaster.  The map was impossible to follow and we ended up so lost that we had to tramp across a farmer’s fields to get to a road that we could see.  From there, we were able to orientate ourselves and decided that a shorter stroll along some pretty country roads would suffice.  And given that we had some more time on our hands we drove up to another bastide town called Montesquiou.

On our last night we had bangers and mash with the very tasty basque saussicon made by the Tillac butcher.  We had completely given up on sensible, moderated eating by this point. 

This region is notable for its jazz festival in Marciac and a country music festival in Mirande, which are held during summer.  Some of the publicity from this year’s country music festival was still around, and so in case you were ever wondering what becomes of faded American soap stars….

And what of child stars….

 

Next time: Cooking school in the Lot and Garonne