4th. This evening Luce and I went to the first Summer concert at the Palaise de Congress in Royan. We are so lucky with the Academy of Music there and its enthusiastic Director who organises such wonderful programs. This evening was a story concert with a screen behind the players onto which various pictures were projected and with Narrators for each piece the finale of which was music from Carmen.
6th. This morning I set out for a little tour in the Camper to explore the River Charente. My first stop was the Chateau de Roche-Courbon, just outside the village of St. Porchaire.
The gardens are listed as “Notable” so it was a pity that the little box bordered beds had not been planted with colourful flowers. However the preponderance of water was inhabited by an orchestra of cacophenous frogs!
A nice touch was the piped Barroc Music that flowed gently over the gardens. The Chateau is privately owned and still lived in by the descendants of the original family that built the first castle in the fourteenth century. There was also an excellent little museum of pre-history. A lot of the artifacts came from the caves on the site.
Two other exhibitions showed a collection of ancient games and a pictorial history of the gardens.
From here I drove on to St Savinien where I got a lovely riverside parking near the lock.
Walked into the Town via the leasure park that has a rather nice minature port on a lake with minature electric powered ships for hire.
The Town itself is charming. It has a railway station on the line that runs from Royan to Angouleme and thence to Paris. It also has a cinema, a fair sized covered market and a lot of galleries.
Luckly for me we arrived in town just in time for a free concert that was being held in the Church Squ overlooking the river.
This was the first boat that I saw actually moving on the river as it pulled into the lock waiting pontoon for the night.
On my walk the next morning before leaving town I found the port du plaisance. Not having found it the previous afternoon I had asked a local where it was. She said that there was nothing to see at the moment because the pontoons were being refurbished but they would be sorted out in 15 days time. What I found was a large number of pontoons up-side-down in the grass. They certainly would represent quite a large port once they were re-floated but they looked more than 15 days away from achieving that!
7th. First stop of the day was the delightful port town of Port d’Envaux. Very basic shopping in the town but a fair number of eateries, however one gets the impression that it might be quite dead in winter. There were quai-side and pontoon moorings with electricity points and a pump-out. There was a nice clean shower and loo block near-by.
From here I moved on to Taillebourg where there was even less activity in town but quai-side and pontoon moorings with services, a shower and loo block and quai-side cafe.
From here I continued into Saintes. The Aire was awful. Basically a car park with no shade and it was bloody hot. I paid the 5 Euro overnight fee and Cassidy and I walked into town where we picked up a map from the tourism office. back at the Aire I worked on the computer till I ran out of power and realised that it would be costly, Euro 5 for 55mins, and inconvenient to top up here. I also decided that I did not want to stay in this Aire for the night. There were a number of dodgy vans occupied by dodgy looking fellows with BIG dogs! So I moved on to Chanier thinking to stay in the campsite. The campsite was closed but I parked up outside in a pleasant spot next to the Chain Ferry.
There were mooring pontoons nearby with free services.
There was a fortified church in town with a pleasing and simple interior.
Back at the campsite it seemed that the place had been taken over as an alternative living environment. There was an amazing tree house and a large scale “carralette” complete with fishing net that could be lowered into the river.
8th. This morning I moved onto “April in Paris, Chestnuts in blossom”, except that it is May and it is Segonaz and not Paris. The chestnuts however were indeed in blossom.
The Aire was amazing with free water and electricity, lots of lovely shade and space. We got into the town Squ just after the VE Day stuff had finished and in time to see the small market in front of the romansque church.
Adjacent to the Squ was a charming old Lavoir.
A major bonus back at the Aire is that I seem to have sorted out the fault with the water tank that had meant that whatever water I put in just ran out again So I will be leaving here with full tanks and a fully charged computer!
9th. A meandering morning along the Charante through many pretty villages. Starting at Sireuil where there was a Nichol’s Boat Hire and a charming lock. The mooring pontoon was out of the village in the countryside with an old lavoir at the entrance road.
Next on to the lovely village of St Simeux with a mooring pontoon under the Mill Pond and a steep climb to a well kept village with a charming church.
On to Bonneuil where we parked up in the shade by a stream for lunch and a walk through the hamlet past the church.
The final stop for the day, I think! At Ligniéres-Sonneville where there should have been electricity and all facilities for free. The Aire more over is in a charming setting in the grounds of an old moated Chateau that now houses the Marie. However the facilities were under repairs but at least the area is attractive and shady. The village is pleasant, old stone and roses, and there are a number of lavoirs arranged around what must have been a second moat. There was an English couple with their van in the Aire when I arrived, he said that he hoped I would be staying as he did not like being on his own. As I write this four other vans have just pulled in!
10th. Left early and drove to Pons. On the outskirts I was able to give the van a good external clean at a car-wash. I decided to stay in the camp site for the night to access electricity and have a shower and hair wash. Had a lovely long chat with Helen, some tea and cake (just to keep me going having not had breakfast) and after a shower headed off with Cassidy to explore the town.
A short walk and a flight of stone steps took under the ramparts with our first view of the huge Donjon ( Castle Keep) and ultimately into the Place de la Républic. The old town is built around the Chateau within the walls overlooking the river La Soute. Below the town the river meanders in a sort of delta with many branches running through a treed valley with lovely walks.
Back up the hill the streets and alleys are very attractive.
The waterways in town are fronted by some lovely town houses
The Church of St Vivien has a distinct Spanish air about it which is hardly surprising given that the town is on one of the routes of hte Cameno de Santeago de Compostelle and not a million miles away from the Spanish boarder. There are some lovely bronz pilgrims adorning the adjacent round-about.
I had an excellent lunch in town and was out walking till about 4pm, Then back to the campsite to put our feet up!
11th. Following and early morning walk with Cassidy to pick up breakfast croissant we headed for home via the Port of Mportang-sur-Gironde. This is one of the Gironde Estuary ports that Helen and Steve didn’t visit while staying with me and so I wanted to check out what size boats they could accommodate. I have been to this lovely port before and it has an excellent Aire, good restaurants and a great junk store.
At Talmond there was a kite flying competition going on with some enormous kites and a Vintage Car rally. So I stopped for a while to watch the cars go by.
It has been a great little trip but is equally nice to come home.
17th My cousin Susan arrived at La Rochelle airport this afternoon and we stopped at the Dealers to have the camper serviced on the way home. During her visit we had nice walks, a visit to Brouage and the Brocant at Royan and a BBQ with friends from down the road. Susan did very well to keep up with the conversation in French.
Sadly a trip to Mornac on the way back to the airport did not happen. 48 hrs before she was due to leave Susan had an e-mail from Ryanair to say that her flight had been cancelled and we had to spend quite a lot of time on air looking for an alternative way home. This left Susan having to leave at 5am the next day as opposed to 6.20pm. It seems that Public Sector workers had come out for the day in support of the railway strikers.
Poppies on the ramparts at Brouage
and some interesting interiors!
28th. Off to La Rochelle airport again today to pick up daughter Marian and her husband Pete.
29th Morning outing to Talmond for a walk along the clifftops between vineyard and sea. In the afternoon we went to the La Régulus Cave. These are sandstone caves cut into the cliffs at Mechers. Originally inhabited by persecuted Protestants in the C16th they were inhabited or used right through to 1920. The last inhabitant being a woman who was forced into relative poverty when her vines were attacked by phyllorxera and she had to abandon her farm. She lived there continuously for 26 years. Other caves were used variously as a Restaurant and bathing cubicles.
Now-a-days in addition to the museum there are an hotel and a crêpery while some of the other caves are attached to private residences.
Up against the cliffs are some of the Girond’s traditional carrelets.
30th Off to Mornac for the day with the usual walk along the path beside the creek and the oyster folks huts where we spotted this unusual orchid and a little local conservation!
We had lunch in town and toured the boutiques. Stopping at the railway station we found, while looking at the route map of the little tourist train, that there was another as yet unexplored port nearby and set out to find a charming little creek and some men putting mussel ladders through the washing and stripping machine.
capetocarpe 