Blogs from Poitou-Charentes, France, Europe - page 7

Finally, after months of planning, we have arrived to begin our adventure in France. We are starting in a less visited but very beautiful area of France called Poitou-Charentes. It includes Bordeaux, St Emilion and the areas south and east. The Maritime portion of this area has lovely seaports on the Atlantic. But we will be living for a month in the Charentes, which is far different. Farmlands abound and at this time of year it is all about the last harvest and turning the dirt for the winter. Cognac is within this region but the local farmers make an apertif called Pineau de Charentes that is a less alcoholic tasting combination of wine and cognac in red and white varieties. Our small village of Chalais is about an hour south of Angouleme. It is typical ... read more

Time to move on, almost directly south, over the Vezere and then the Dordogne river and down to the Ger in beautiful pastoral Gascony. Bob and Clarissa Tomtom had planned a route last night which went in a pretty straight line and took us along roads we had not used before. We were quite surprised by this as we thought we had probably seen all the stretches of the Dordogne that there are to see but we took a road south from Campagne, a rather attractive town on the Vezere, to Siorac-en-Perigord on the Dordogne, and decided we had not been this way before. I am about to correct that, we have been to Siorac before. In June 2003 we stayed in a gite in Mouzens just over the river, with Nigel and Lynne and ... read more

Early (ish – we are on holiday !) start to the day as we were visiting the lovely market in La Flotte which is mornings only and very busy. There are two excellent fish stalls but unfortunately we don’t recognize many varieties of fish on sale and also have the problem of not wanting to prepare anything too ‘fish smelly’ in the Tandy. I decided to take the easy option and buy sea bass. The first stall didn’t have any (I discovered this only after accidentally jumping the queue to the indignation of the French lady at the front). The second stall did so I pointed at a nice plump fish and asked for it to be filleted. Oops really should have checked the price first. So expensive I am not going to say here how ... read more

Had a pleasantly disturbed sleep. There seemed to be owls all round, hooting and toowit toowooing at each other, and as it was such a lovely clear night the sounds carried right across the campsite. I note that now as I type this the evening serenade has already started. This really is a lovely place, beautifully green and very peaceful, except for the owls that is. What a glorious day. Exactly as forecast, summer has finally arrived and long may it last. First day I have put on shorts and sun-top as soon as I got up and the first day I have needed suntan lotion. We scootered into Coulon, only a couple of miles, along the river and followed a couple of 'no entry', 'locals only' signs to the riverbank where we parked the scooter. ... read more

BLOG 12 Monday 2 July – So there we were still on the island of Oleron – northern end, at St Denis. It was a cool overcast morning, so we slobbed it in the van ‘til after lunch. Off on the bikes again in the increasing bright weather cross-county on a round trip to Les Huttes, where we had an ice-cream and watched the surfers, back across the island to La Bree-les-Bains again to see if we’d missed anything the first time......we hadn’t – then finally back to St Denis for refreshments and in search of wi-fi. Discovered a harbour-front bar with free connection, so B cycled back for the laptop and we enjoyed a demi-picheur of white as we checked emails and blogged in the sunshine. Tuesday 3 July – Happy Birthday to brother Jeremy! ... read more