23/6/25 Driving Day heading slowly north. Though it was a driving day it wasn’t too long a drive as we had inserted the Brantome, previous stop, into the originally planned itinerary so it reduced the miles to travel to next stop. A pleasant drive through lots and lots of agricultural land, fields stretching for miles in all directions and full of sunflowers and potatoes and of course golden grain. Harvesting has already started and we saw lots of farmers cutting their crops. We bypassed Poitiers where a massive amusement park Futuroscope is located. We saw some of that as we drove by but were not tempted to stop. Campsite for the night was Camping du Lac de Saint-Cyr at Beaumont Saint-Cyr. Sunday, a big leisure lake and a gloriously sunny day. The turn into the campsite ... read more

We were quite surprised really to find that we hadn’t been to Brantome before as it is such an obvious place to visit, well on the tourist trail. We have stayed not far away, a little further north near Nontron, at Chateau le Verdoyer a couple of times in our very early motorhoming days and remember a lovely visit to Nontron with sister Rosemary and husband Barry when we all met up at the campsite so have very happy memories of the area. I’m including a tiny photo I found of them there as it makes me happy to see it. Saturday is market day in Brantome and the market is enormous. We had no real need of fresh food but a French market is always a delight to wander around so that is what we ... read more

First stop today was our nearest town, Villereal, just 4km away. Another Bastide town and also another Plus Beaux Villages de France. As it turned out, though it has the most superb market place, the pretty bit really seems to be confined just to that central area so we didn’t find it as lovely as the other villages we visited. Villereal does have the most fantastic covered market, it even has steps up to an inside area under a peaked roof and was a real delight to visit. We did get a little wet as it decided to rain when we were there. We were enjoying a coffee, under cover and felt so sorry for the market traders who as well as getting themselves and their stalls wet, suddenly lost all their customers who ran for ... read more

A wet start as we had been kept awake for a while by thunder and lightening. There is a lot about at the moment across a lot of France and the UK but it is still very pleasantly warm. We had taken the awning down and everything in, because of the rain, the night before so an easy departure with not much to do to get ready. The drive was only 80 miles and across lovely countryside, a few hills and lots of straight roads and fields full of crops as far as the eye can see. I had glimpses of pretty Dordogne coloured buildings as we went along and started to see the sunflowers and nut trees the region is so famous for. Our destination was Camping Le Chateau de Fonrives just outside Villeréal, a ... read more

Our wedding anniversary today. 28 years. I think we have been on holiday for at least 25 of the anniversaries 😊 which makes celebrating easy. Today we were heading for a campsite with a restaurant so Bob suggested we would eat there for dinner but I had been checking the reviews which reported the campsite restaurant was only open July and August so that snookered that idea. Another hot day and a little alarmingly when I was reading about the campsite the pool appeared to be closed on Saturday. Not 100% sure about that as the campsite in French said Samedi but the English version said Sunday which is tomorrow. Inexplicable that it could be closed any day at the weekend but it seemed likely that it would be one day or the other. We had ... read more