6th/7th & 8th May. A long weekend as the 8th is VE Day. Victory in Europe Day and a public holiday. Taken, as are so many of the war commemorative celebrations, so much more seriously by the French than they are by the English. I put this down to the fact that France was occupied while England never was. It leaves a different mindset. I expect the down band will lead a group (ever dwindling with time) of veterans to the war memorial and cemetery later this morning. The French flag bunting was already in evidence when Cassidy and I went into the Boulangerie for our weekend croissants earlier.
Meanwhile in the bay it is the turn of the sailors the weekend with some serious racing taking place. Los of activity at the sailing club as the sailors wheeled their boats to the sea and lined up ready for the “OFF”.
This bay, right on the mouth of the Gironde Estuary, is very large and there were frequently more than one race taking place at the same time. I counted 50 participants in one and 30 in a second, all on the water at the same time.
Saturday and Sunday the sailors were blessed with good winds, enough to pull up the Spinny! To-day, so far, the wind is much lighter.
9th. Today is the day that I say goodbye to my little Citroen and collect my new Dacia Dokker. This is largely down to the practicality of transporting dog and bike without having to drive around in the camper. The Citroen has been a wonderful little car and made the first few years of dealing with French roads fairly easy with its automatic gearbox and built-in SATNAV but at three years old now is the best time to do a trade-in and I am pleased with the deal I have been able to negotiate.
The new vehicle is much more Cassidy friendly and as long as I remember it has a clutch it works OK for me too!
12th This evening I collected Sandi Fowkes from Royan railway station. She is with me for ten days and we have a full schedule.
13th. Market day in Royan so we took a walk around. Marveled at the colourful fruit and veg stores, the seafood stalls, the strings of chili peppers, the modern building ( we agreed that we prefer the traditional wrought iron and glass models). We bought a duck breast, new pototoes and green asparagas for lunch.
14th. Drove up the estuary today as far as Mortange-sur-Gironde. A typical example of how the silting up of the estuary has removed port towns and cliffs inland!
On to Talmond where we did the clifftop walk and had a good lunch
We passed an attractive ruined windmill on the way home.
In the evening we went to Royan for a choral concert in the cathedral. The concert was excellent with a good selection of choral pieces. However the Cathedral is a modern concrete monstrocity. Built in the 1950s to replace the one bombed in the war, at a cost of 100,000million old france, it is now in a parlous state of disrepair. The reinforcing steel inside the concrete is rusting. In my view they shoul pull it down and start over!
15th. Today we drove to the lovely medieval town of Brouage, one of my favorite local places. It had been a sea port but like Mortange and so many other coastal places round here, silting up has moved the shoreline out and away from the town leaving a Marais of canalised mud flats behind. It is nesting season for storks and we were lucky to find a stork with three chicks on one of the purpose built nesting platforms.
One of the things I had missed on previous visits to the town was the safe entrance from the sea via tunnels under the ramparts.
Another feature I had missed on other visits was the ice house.
Following a good lunch we took a slow drive back to St George via the Phare de Coubre lighthouse.
16th. A comparatively quiet day with a walk in the forest and round the town including our little market. In the early evening we had a yoga session at the sports centre which was held in the garden as it was so hot!
17th. After taking Cassidy to the vet to get his stitches out and find out what the Lab had to say about his tumors (nothing sinister, calsified bony lumps) we drove to Mornac-sur-Sudre. A quaint small town with its inland port on the edge of the Marais where the main industry is tourism and the second industry is the Oyster and mussel farms that the tourist come to see. It is a delightful spot with the canal lined with traditional oyster gather’s huts, most of which are probably weekend retreats now-a-days. They are however a really colourful addition to the scene.
Back in the port area there was a good selection of restaurants and we chose well in terms of the ambience and the food.
The walk through the town took us to the market square past more places to eat and up-market tourist trap boutiques and artisans studios.
Next stop the simple, very old and totally delightful Romanesque Chruch with a very original font in the form of a conch shell.
In the evening we had a few friends round for Aperos. It went very well with a mix of French, German and English being spoken.
Following a couple of days of rain and staying closer to home we set off on the
20th to Ile d’Aix by ferry from Fouras-des-Baines passing the sea forts of Vauban and Boyard on the way.
For many years the Island was a military fortress, Napoleon built what he claimed was an impenetrable fort. The ramparts were about 30 meters thick and there was a bank of batteries on the sea facing side with gun emplacements on top and armeries below.
There is no vehiclure traffic on the Island except for that of the residents so everyone gets around on foot or by bike. Cassidy was able to have a play off lead with another dog and enjoyed the beach.
There are two handsome lighthouses on the ramparts, right next to each other, fotr what reason I do not know!
After a good lunch and lots of walking we were ready to go home and enjoy a light dinner, wine, |The Vicar of Dibly and bed.
Sadly Sandi leaves tomorrow, she will be missed!
capetocarpe 