April 20 Cassagnas to St Germain de Calberte (15 km 200 m)

The weather was cold and windy. We had the odd snow flurry later in the day. Today was billed as a short day. We set off and walked up into the forest.

This was a mistake. We should have explored the village of Cassagnas first. 

There is a holiday village with café at Serre de la Can on the way through the forest, but we were too early by a few weeks. The café was shut so we continued in to St German de Calberte and arrived too early at 14:00. Pickup time was 17:00. Our instructions were insistent that we did not ring the farm. It was a working farm. We had a quick coffee in the one bar in the village and found a brochure describing a walk around a series of posters in the village.
We zipped up our jackets and followed the trail, past the Protestant church, the Catholic Church, an exceedingly bare statue and a social centre that during WWII was home to 42 Jews. The Protestant vicar helped these people stay hidden. The Postmaster or -mistress binned any letters of denunciation. The Gendarmes kept their eyes shut when necessary and the school teacher registered any kids under false names.  These people survived even when the village was searched by the Vichy Militia.

Robert Louis Stevenson also came here. I don't know whether he found a sheltered spot by the Polyvalent Hall but we did and ate the remains of our packed lunch. We popped into the village supermarket and returned to the café for a second cup of coffee. At 17:00 the farmer arrived from the Ferme de Lancizolle in his well used Land Rover and as we dropped off the edge of the world into the valley below, he asked what time we'd arrived. We told him and he asked why we hadn't rung him? I suspect one can be too polite at times.
The evening was interesting. We were the only two English speakers speaking Mancunian French with ten native French speakers. We didn't say much, but it was a long jolly evening with a lot of laughter and excellent food: Nettle soup, rabbit paté, roast rabbit with sautéed potatoes and a powerful green bean with garlic sauce, cheese and chestnut and chocolate mousse. Chestnuts still feature heavily in the more ethnic menus.