On the road again the next day, now heading back East. We left the well worn main road on a whim that this Michelin recommended Hotel de la Poste, at Oust, might be the place to stay for the night. It was early and we arrived in time for lunch. We had a beer and a huge ham sandwich in the garden and decided that we could do a great deal worse: so we decided to stay. The village was a bit quieter than we hoped for, but a quite night is not a bad thing. I fear the rooms are very average but the food was not!

We had the top menu at 25 Euros. Toad has fresh water écrevisse (crayfish) which came from the local river. I had foie grass. I wish I had had the crayfish because I used to serve them in the Cotswolds where we caught them in the local river, I had not realised what was on offer until I saw them. They are quite a treat, if not a little picky to eat, unless it is just the tails that are easy to acquire.

For main I thought I was going to get hare, but once I started eating it I remarked it was a bloody big hare if the meat I had indeed come from one. It was very good and was in a thick rich gravy. However later talking to the chef I discovered my "grand lapin" was in fact roe deer. With a decent little pud and some local cheese it was a very pleasant meal of mainly local products served in a surprisingly grand and comfortable dining room.

The Hotel de la Poste is a lovely old fashioned rural hotel of the type that used to abound all over France : but are a dying breed. Well worth a visit for a quite night even if the bedrooms a little too rustic.

It was now Friday and we were due in Pézenas the next day to pick up my sister. After much research we decided to try Castres. It looked an interesting city, but none of the hotels seems to have parking. However with plenty of time in hand we headed there. Inside the old city there were plenty of narrow streets and not much parking. In the event we found the Hotel Renaissance and managed to stop in the walking street outside. They had both rooms and parking, although it was in the next hotel thirty yards up the road. Thus we ended up in the almost medieval Europe Hotel. It is three joined up 17 th century houses with a strange collection object d'art in the reception and vast bedrooms many with four poster beds.