Two Potter Around Northern France

[DBK]

We drove south for about an hour and a half today, seeking the sun which obliged with an extended appearance this afternoon.

We are staying, if not in the middle nowhere, then somewhere close to it.

We are at another CCP site beside the tiny village of Manteney-Montlin, also CC 68574. This is the first CCP site we've used which is part of their "Parking de mon Village" group, of which they have 16 according to my paper map, but given the speed this chain seems to be growing there are probably more now. What makes it different from the normal CCP aires is it has a small toilet block with washing up and showers, although only two of those. There is a manager who visits to do the cleaning. It is of course a former campsite and someone spent a lot of money putting it together. I don't think it was ever a municipal, the village is too small.

We are on the former tennis court.

The building behind us is huge and open on two sides. There are the remains of a bar in there, it isn't very old and must have cost tens of thousands of euros to build. Some poor soul lost a packet here.

The site is next to a river.

But it is turgid and very green, from agricultural run-off I suspect. Most of the pitches are on grass but after yesterday's rain we chose the drier tennis court.

There is a restaurant in the village, only open during the day except on Fridays and Saturdays when it opens in the evening. We are tempted to have lunch there tomorrow.

The main courses from the top are I think.:

A local dish cooked the traditional way: Chicken with cream.

Guinea fowl

Duck leg with green pepper

The "Bréchets Persillé (Grenouilles du pauvre)" threw me, the latter phrase means poor mans' frogs, but it seems to be strips of chicken fried and served with parsley.

The bavette and entrecôte are steaks.

I'm tempted by this menu but I couldn't manage a five course lunch.

They are big on frogs here, the Dombes lakes area is close, but the French frogs, so to speak, are now protected and the frogs served now comes places like Turkey and Vietnam. We'll be giving it a miss.

But this is the Bresse region, the Chicken centre of France and in honour of this the village has one at least five metres high!

 

[Robert Clark]

We drove south for about an hour and a half today, seeking the sun which obliged with an extended appearance this afternoon.

We are staying, if not in the middle nowhere, then somewhere close to it.

View attachment 333988

We are at another CCP site beside the tiny village of Manteney-Montlin, also CC 68574. This is the first CCP site we've used which is part of their "Parking de mon Village" group, of which they have 16 according to my paper map, but given the speed this chain seems to be growing there are probably more now. What makes it different from the normal CCP aires is it has a small toilet block with washing up and showers, although only two of those. There is a manager who visits to do the cleaning. It is of course a former campsite and someone spent a lot of money putting it together. I don't think it was ever a municipal, the village is too small.

We are on the former tennis court.

View attachment 333995

The building behind us is huge and open on two sides. There are the remains of a bar in there, it isn't very old and must have cost tens of thousands of euros to build. Some poor soul lost a packet here.

The site is next to a river.

View attachment 334013

But it is turgid and very green, from agricultural run-off I suspect. Most of the pitches are on grass but after yesterday's rain we chose the drier tennis court.

There is a restaurant in the village, only open during the day except on Fridays and Saturdays when it opens in the evening. We are tempted to have lunch there tomorrow.

View attachment 334014

The main course from the top are I think.:

A local dish cooked the traditional way: Chicken with cream.

Guinea fowl

Duck leg with green pepper

The "Bréchets Persillé (Grenouilles du pauvre) threw me, the latter phrase means poor mans' frogs, but it seems to be strips of chicken fried and served with parsley.

The bavette and entrecôte are steaks.

But I'm tempted by this menu but I couldn't manage a five course lunch.

View attachment 334015

They are big and on frogs here, the Dombes lake area is close, but the French frogs, so to speak are now protected and the stuff served comes places like Turkey and Vietnam. We'll be giving it a miss.

But this s the Bresse region, the Chicken centre of France and in honour of this the village has one at least five metre high!

View attachment 334018

La Bresse chickens are prized for their flavoursome meat
We bought some fertile eggs and incubated them at home
Made a wonderful Christmas dinner

 

[DBK]

We woke to the sound of raindrops on the roof and the news the weather forecast was less optimistic than it had been last night. So we decided against staying another night and eating out and moved on. My wallet let out an audible gasp of relief at this change of plan.

The first part of the route took us through the Dombes lakes area which you can see in the top right here.

Sadly, they look more interesting on a map than on the ground. Mostly dug in the 15th century for fish breeding a lot have been filled in but commercial farming of fish like carp still goes on. They are a good spot for birding - we saw several Great White Egrets and no doubt there was more to see if we had stopped. Our orthithology this morning was more of the "drive-by" kind, to use a topical phrase.

We also did a bit of drive-by cloud spotting thanks to Mrs DBK's sharp eyees.

Parallel rows of clouds.

Annoyingly, I usually pack my cloud identification book but I haven't this time but a bit of Googling suggests these are known as cloud streets. They are formed by successive rows of warm air rising then curling over and falling again.

If you look towards the eastern edge of the map above you should see a place called Meximeux. But we weren't going there but to somewhere near by and too small to show on the map at this scale.

This is the fortified medieval village of Pérouges.

The entrance, looking from the inside.

And now a few random views.

The building with the red shield is a restaurant.

It had signs on the door saying they were full, probably a coach party arriving later, but this did ensure we couldn't be tempted by one of the menus.

But I have eaten here before and stayed in the hotel near by and I didn't have to pay for any of it. A French company picked up the bill. Happy days. I recommend the Poulet de Bresse here but do make a reservation.

Corn on the cob anyone if you are feeling hard up?

Some properties still available for conversion.

This shot really needed a 2CV but the Dyane in French Blue is a good alternative.

And now we are north of Lyon at yet another CCP aire at Villefranche sur Saône.

We are going to get back to "proper" aires tomorrow and will aim for one on the Loire south west of St Étienne.

 

[DBK]

A couple of hours driving this morning, some of it through heavy rain, brought us to Retournac and a (probably) free aire beside the Loire, CC21464.

I say probably free, because that's what CC says but there are signs saying it is €5 per night. No matter, we will pay up if anyone comes.

To reach here we had to get around Lyon, or that's what I thought, but the satnav took us through Lyon using a long tunnel which emerges on the banks of the Rhône very close to the city centre. Dual carriageway the whole way and traffic limited to 70kph so it was an interesting and not unpleasant excursion. We did it late morning, rush hour would be very different I suspect.

As we left Lyon the land changed and we saw and drove amongst hills! This is more like our sort of country. The major rivers of northern France are pleasant in their own way but you can't beat a few big bumps in the ground and some cliffs.

The aire isn't directly on the river, there's a picnic area between the aire and the water but as it was lashing down with rain when we arrived this wasn't something which concerned us. But the aire is well drained and the puddles soon vanished after the rain stopped and the sun came out.

And so in sunshine we explored Retournac after lunch. First impressions were not good, shop after shop closed but there was life in the very centre of the town, which was quite attractive.

The church is 12th century according to an information board, but I suspect most of what can now been seen is a little later. It has a geocache in a hole in one of its walls. Mrs DBK found it!

The river below the town looked nice in the sun. A circus had set up and had both a big and a little top either side of the bridge. This is the little top on the right.

Another view of the river. We followed it from its mouth to source a couple of years ago and it seems like an old friend now.

From here the plan is to potter west, not driving too much each day. We shall see how we get on.

 

[DavidG58]

I like my geography but have been embarrassed by my lack of knowledge of French rivers, I had no idea the Loire started so far south in France

Another school day ?

Just realised we have happened upon one of your earlier Aires, despite reading your post at the time I didn’t recall until re-reading this thread ?

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[DBK]

I like my geography but have been embarrassed by my lack of knowledge of French rivers, I had no idea the Loire started so far south in France

Another school day ?

Just realised we have happened upon one of your earlier Aires, despite reading your post at the time I didn’t recall until re-reading this thread ?

If you go to the source of the Loire you are almost, with a bit of artistic licence, within a stone's throw of the Mediterranean. An amazing river and the source is an even shorter stone's throw from where we are now, shown by the grey blob on the map below.

 

[Riverbankannie]

Sitting in the parking by the swimming pool at Wissembourg and enjoying reading your posts as ever. The rain is hammering on the roof and I hope we don’t wake up to find ourselves floating in the town moat! We haven’t got time to go south for the sun unfortunately.
Keep up the good work with your great threads.

 

[DBK]

Before leaving the aire at Retournac we visited the service point where there are a couple of weird taps.




In hindsight I should have shot the video without the hose attached as you can't see the water coming out. So you will just have to take my word by pressing down on the lever the water flows. Made in America from the writing on them.

We then went to do our washing, at a laundry with a view.

There is a small Intermarché supermarket on the north side of Retournac which conveniently has washing machines and a dryer so before leaving the town we spent an hour or so returning our wardrobe to respectability.

A drive of forty minutes took us further up the Loire to Le Puy en Velay by the Routes de Gorges de la Loire according to the signs. It's a pretty drive and worth taking, just ignore the satnav which will try and take you on the main road away from the river.

There are a couple of aires in Le Puy, both a similar price but we chose the CCP one by the bus and train stations.

We are going to stay here two nights and do our main exploring tomorrow morning but this afternoon we had a quick poke around the old part of the town.

Le Puy sits on the site of an extinct and heavily eroded volcano and several fingers of larva stick up from it on which statues and a church have been built. We plan to see those tomorrow and today we only went to see the cathedral, which is reached through narrow streets...

... and up a lot of hills and steps...

You can just glimpse the Cathedral in the background in the shot above. Note where the people are gathered it has steps on the downhill side only, so steep is the road here.

The Cathedral saves its best steps to the end.

The entrance is the arches of course but if you look above them you can see stained glass windows. Part of the Cathedral is built over the entrance, the steps of which bring you more or less to the middle of the building. A unique arrangement I believe.

The inside holds one of the Black Madonnas for which the Auvergne is famous, though this one is a 17th century copy, the original probably dated from the time of the Crusades. It is just visible in the centre of the alter as a white dot and looking like a doll, in the shot below.

We were mugged by some student nurses on our walk. They were collecting money for some cause which I missed. They are probably drinking their haul tonight. A happy bunch.

A good sunset this evening, the tower is the Cathedral. Taken from the entrance to the aire.

And this is where we are.

And closer up.

Our current plan is to head directly west from here and if possible avoid the Dordogne. There's nothing wrong with the region but we've been there before so we will what there is a little away from it.

 

[DBK]

We returned to the town this morning in full tourist mode, determined to bag a couple of the star turns here and try some local nosh.

So it was back to the steps.

The town has a number of very old buildings hidden away, sometimes in amongst more modern stuff.

And then some buildings are just old.

This doorway has a head of the gorgon Medusa above it.

We walked (climbed!) up to the bottom of the statue called the Notre Dame de France which stands high above the town and seen from almost everywhere.

Erected in 1860 the most interesting thing about it was it cast from 213 cannons captured at Sebastopol. You can see railings below the statue and for €4 or something like that you can walk (ha!) up there, but we had a larger fish to fry.

The Chapelle St Michel d'Aiguilhe.

The rock it stands on is sometimes called Le Dyke although technically the dyke is only part of it. A crack opened in the original rock through which larva flowed and subsequently cooled. This is the geological dike or dyke.*

Mrs DBK covered my retreat from a park bench at the bottom while I shelled out €5 for the privilege of aching legs and touch of vertigo to reach the top.

In 962 the bishop of Le Puy returned from one of the first pilgrimages to Santiago de Compostela and commissioned the chapel to be built. I should have taken a photo of the inside, which is tiny, but a few folk seemed to be having silent prayers in there - or they might have been asleep in which case I wouldn't have liked to wake them while I set up my tripod.

So here instead is the view looking down.

And if you want to see what the chapel looks like inside it will cost you €5 with an intensive leg, lung and heart workout thrown in for free.

Or use Google Images.

To help my legs recover what else is required in this place but some puy lentils?

The same type of lentil is grown elsewhere but apparently the volcanic soil here gives them a more flinty and peppery taste and puy lentils are prized and have an AOD (geographic thingy) accreditation. I'll have to take that on trust and will keep lentils, wherever they come from, as an emergency foodstuff for times of famine. But the anaemic looking sausage was tasty and saved the meal. €46 for two with a half litre of house wine and ice creams for pud. It had to be done and you should try puy lentils if you come here. You must.

A short hop to the hills tomorrow.

* The dyke also lends its name to a local hotel.

 

[moulin 87]

We've set off 2 or 3 times to visit Puy but either bypassed it or never reached it. Next time we'll definitely stop,

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[DBK]

Another stunning sunset here tonight. They aren't visible from the aire because of trees but they can be seen from just outside the entrance. You have to be quick, the best bit lasts only a few minutes.

 

[DBK]

We pottered just a short way this morning, a journey thrown initially into disarray when the supermarket I'd selected on the satnav, which I assumed was on the outskirts of Le Puy, turned out to be up a side street in a busy part of the city! Serves me right for not checking. We didn't need to do a big shop but we were running low on beer and wine so finding somewhere open was vaguely important. Fortunately we found a small convenience store in the village of Bains where we we could park outside on the street. It was a Vival store which we haven't used before but they had a good selection of proper breads and we filled our basket with a few other things, including French beans to go with the tarragon chicken Mrs DBK is going to make tomorrow. Tonight she's made a pizza from scratch.

We have come only 20 km west of Le Puy to the aire at the village of Le Vernet, CC15130.

The services are free although someone should come around this evening and collect €3 from us. There are EHU points too, at an additional charge I understand.

The village is tiny but has a bar although it looked shut when we walked past it. This shot of the church shows the dark volcanic rock all the buildings in this area are made from.

This is where we are.

I've selected the terrain map as it shows we are in a slightly bumpy area, the Monts du Devés. The downside is we are at 1100m and it is going to be chilly here tonight.

There are marked walks starting opposite the aire and we chose a relatively gentle 2.5 km walk to a cross on top of a hill called La Durande. The views from the top were far reaching.

In a couple of the fields lower down autumn crocus were growing.

And in complete contrast let us play a game. And the name of the game is...

NAME THAT POOP!

There were lots of these on the track we walked along and even one next to the van in the aire.

From a distance.

Close up !

Answer

Sorry, you need to subscribe to see this content. Subs are £20 a year. You Can Subscribe Here

Log in or register now.

 

[moulin 87]

We pottered just a short way this morning, a journey thrown initially into disarray when the supermarket I'd selected on the satnav, which I assumed was on the outskirts of Le Puy, turned out to be up a side street in a busy part of the city! Serves me right for not checking. We didn't need to do a big shop but we were running low on beer and wine so finding somewhere open was vaguely important. Fortunately we found a small convenience store in the village of Bains where we we could park outside on the street. It was a Vival store which we haven't used before but they had a good selection of proper breads and we filled our basket with a few other things, including French beans to go with the tarragon chicken Mrs DBK is going to make tomorrow. Tonight she's made a pizza from scratch.

We have come only 20 km west of Le Puy to the aire at the village of Le Vernet, CC15130.

View attachment 335363

The services are free although someone should come around this evening and collect €3 from us. There are EHU points too, at an additional charge I understand.

The village is tiny but has a bar although it looked shut when we walked past it. This shot of the church shows the dark volcanic rock all the buildings in this area are made from.

View attachment 335364

This is where we are.

View attachment 335365

I've selected the terrain map as it shows we are in a slightly bumpy area, the Monts du Devés. The downside is we are at 1100m and it is going to be chilly here tonight.

There are marked walks starting opposite the aire and we chose a relatively gentle 2.5 km walk to a cross on top of a hill called La Durande. The views from the top were far reaching.

View attachment 335366

In a couple of the fields lower down autumn crocus were growing.

View attachment 335367

And in complete contrast let us play a game. And the name of the game is...

NAME THAT POOP!

There were lots of these on the track we walked along and even one next to the van in the aire.

From a distance.

View attachment 335368

Close up !

View attachment 335369

Answer

Sorry, you need to subscribe to see this content. Subs are £20 a year. You Can Subscribe Here

Log in or register now.

We find them in our garden on occasion, wondered if it was from the Pine Marten that we see in the woods opposite.

 

[DBK]

We find them in our garden on occasion, wondered if it was from the Pine Marten that we see in the woods opposite.

There is also the very similar Beech marten in France. It likes deciduous woodland but will also come into buildings. It's mostly conifers around here which is why I think the ones here will be pine martens. Poops of both look the same.

 

[moulin 87]

There is also the very similar Beech marten in France. It likes deciduous woodland but will also come into buildings. It's mostly conifers around here which is why I think the ones here will be pine martens. Poops of both look the same.

French call them 'Martre' which I assumed to be Pine Marten because I've never heard of a Beech Marten..

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[DBK]

Another drive of less than an hour to our next destination today but our departure was a little delayed when we found Charlie covered in blood after his morning walk. Nothing unusual happened on the walk but after we came back he disappeared under the van, which in hindsight was odd as he only goes there when it is hot and it wasn't this morning having dropped to 6°C in the night.

When we got him out so we could leave, his mouth and belly were stained with blood. Careful examination by the resident nurse (Mrs DBK) revealed one of his front claws was completely missing, there was just a hole in his paw, like a tooth socket where it should have been. We cleaned him up, sprayed on antiseptic and iodine and he now seems not the slightest bit bothered by it. He isn't chewing or licking his paw and is walking normally. We will keep it clean and away from anything wet and see how he gets on. We will of course take him to a vet if he needs it but the wound is dry and stopped bleeding almost immediately. We can only guess he caught the claw on the walk and chewed it off under the van. Charlie will give his thoughts later on his own thread.

Shortly after leaving Le Vernet we went over the Col de Peyra Taillade and suddenly found ourselves looking at an extraordinary far-reaching view. The low wooded hills, villages and fields stretched to the horizon. We could see wind turbines, which are close to us now but as the crow flies they were 30km from Le Vernet, but the turbines were not the horizon, there were taller hills far beyond them. These were almost certainly the Monts du Cantal and must have been 80km away.

We have come to a very pleasant free aire (water €2) at the little village of Védrines Saint Loup, CC30206.

In the second picture there is a man standing by the fence. He came from the French MH you can see and he is catching grasshoppers, which he then throws into the lake where they are eaten by fish who make quite a splash in the process. I was momentarily tempted to try it but decided to leave the hapless Orthoptera alone. The fish won't starve.

We did a little circular walk, ending in Védrines Saint Loup where there is the usual church...

closed restaurant...

and a "mind the step" front door.

This is where we are.

We are fairly well off the beaten track here, sort of "in-between" the touristy bits.

In close-up.

We are in the Cantal Department and the big green area to our west are the Monts du Cantal. They are the remains of a former massive volcano, now heavily eroded plus other smaller volcanoes which dot the area.

We will stay there tomorrow night. The volcanoes haven't been active for a while so we should be safe.

 

[DBK]

This is a good "dark skies" aire. There was a brief, very slender moon for a while but she's gone back to bed now leaving us a clear sky. I can't remember when I last had a good view of the Milky Way but you can see it from here tonight. Being a thousand metres up probably helps too.

 

[DBK]

If you look at this map again...

... you will see a little to the west of where we were is the town of Saint Flour. It isn't mentioned in our guidebook but it is a spectacularly sited place. It is built on a volcanic "plug" or whatever the correct term is. A bit like Stirling or Edinburgh Castle.

As I haven't yet sprouted wings, this isn't my photograph.

On the road we used, coming from the east, the town was high above us and I assumed we would go around it. But we didn't. The road climbs around one side of the town, passing basalt pillars like you get in Fingal's Cave or the Giant's Causeway before reaching the top. Sadly, the bit of the town we saw wasn't anything special, but the old part, shown in the photograph above must be worth a poke around. And it has at least two aires so someone needs to visit Saint Flour and report back.

Our road took us to Murat in the Monts du Cantal.

We stayed at a huge former municipal site now run inevitably by CCP but this one is a bit odd as in the high season they admit tents and caravans. I guess this means they open the reception office in July and August but at this time of year it is MHs only and admission needs the magic card.

The cows in the background below have large BELLS which clanged on late into the night. They didn't bother me but Mrs DBK insisted on the use of capitals.

Murat has an old quarter.

This is an interesting and to us a newly discovered part of France. I only wish we had been welcomed with better weather.

Cantal cheese is a well known local product.

I bought a slice of the Haut Herbage and at the risk of having my mouth forcibly washed out with soap and water it is a bit like a mature chedder crossed with perhaps a bit Gloucester. We bought ours from a Fromagerie but the local Intermarché next to the campsite also sells it.

Today we headed off further west. There are many things to see around Murat. Puy Mary is the highest peak in Cantal and can be approached quite closely by road but low clouds this morning put paid to that idea.

So we have come to another CCP aire, this time close to the Dordogne, which we crossed shortly before arriving at Forgés.

There's a tiny village here with an auberge and a boulangerie but little else.

From the maps you might see we are now heading towards Brittany but we still have four weeks left so we are in no hurry to get there just yet.

 

[spitfire]

Nice food in the Auberge. Market day in Argentat tomorrow . Great cheese man from Aurillac there and cheap . If you fancy a meal in Argentat I would suggest Sablier du Temps

 

[DBK]

The aire at Forgés had a little surprise for me before we left this morning, mushrooms! The recent rain must have woken them up and a lot of small field mushrooms were poking out of the grass at the back of the aire. Charlie had a somewhat boring walk this morning as I walked up and down the field collecting a bag of the white pearls. We plan to have them on toast tomorrow morning.

A longish drive of two hours then brought us to Jumilac Le Grande.

To get here we had to drive north a bit and tomorrow we will have to undo a bit of that because this place isn't really on the route to anywhere. But we had to come because of this.

This is a totally free aire next to a large chateaux almost in the centre of an attractive small town. There are no signs saying it is an aire for MHs but there is a free service point and no one has moved us on yet. CC #68753 and the first aire I've come across with a geocache inside the aire.

There are a couple of short marked walks around the village. We did the longer and soon realised it was one of these things created no doubt with much enthusiasm but now neglected. It had various bits of wooden equipment for doing exercises on but none looked as if they had been used for a while. A side track pointed to a viewpoint of the village.

A steep overgrown trail brought me to this.

But the promised view was a bit difficult to see because of the trees.

But I'm not being critical, it was a pleasant thirty minute walk. We also had a wander around the town (or is it a big village?) but the sun was wrong for photos of the Chateau.

Jumilac is on the Richard the Lionheart Route, we saw several signs on the way here. I guess this was the route he took returning to England although I haven't looked it up yet.

This is just outside the aire and the connection has me stumped at the moment.

We are heading towards the coast but trying not to go north too soon due to the weather. We should have gone to Spain!

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[rb62]

Earlier this year we went to Clouds Hill,Lawrences house near Bovington.There was a whole section in his cycling exploits in Europe following the route of Richard the Lionheart.

Cycling the Lawrence of Arabia bike route in the Dordogne - Freewheeling France

Cycling the Lawrence of Arabia bike route, or the Roue de Lawrence d'Arabie – a great Dordogne cycling holiday idea - Freewheeling France

www.freewheelingfrance.com

 

[Lenny HB]

Today we headed off further west. There are many things to see around Murat. Puy Mary is the highest peak in Cantal and can be approached quite closely by road but low clouds this morning put paid to that idea.

That's the sissy way up, it's a beautiful ridge walk from Le Lioran about 5 miles each way.

 

[DBK]

Earlier this year we went to Clouds Hill,Lawrences house near Bovington.There was a whole section in his cycling exploits in Europe following the route of Richard the Lionheart.

Cycling the Lawrence of Arabia bike route in the Dordogne - Freewheeling France

Cycling the Lawrence of Arabia bike route, or the Roue de Lawrence d'Arabie – a great Dordogne cycling holiday idea - Freewheeling France

www.freewheelingfrance.com

Very interesting. Thank you. If only he'd stuck with push bikes and stayed away from motorcycles...

 

[DBK]

It rained in the early hours this morning but it stopped in time for Charlie's first walk of the day, which I used as an opportunity to take a shot of the Chateau du Jumilac without the sun shining behind it as it was yesterday when we arrived. Not that the sun was shining in any direction this morning.

They do organised tours at set times during the day. €9.50 a head I believe with a supplement of €2 if you want to visit the "roofs" according to their website.

A drive of under an hour has brought us to Bourdeilles and an aire on the river Dronne. This is just downstream of the wildly popular Brantôme which was heaving with people when we drove through it, or rather around it as the town centre was closed off for a market. The centre is closed to MHs anyway but as we're a delivery van I was going to chance it if there had been no market.

Bourdeilles is a poor cousin of Bramtôme but it has an old bridge, a former mill and a big château - and you can see all three here. The mill is the building with the red roof beyond the bridge.

In the 16th century Queen Catherine de Medici planned to visit the château so some hasty building work was started to create more rooms. Then the visit was cancelled and so was the expansion, the work was never completed.

There is another château in the town, seen on the left here, with a nice garden. Privately owned it seems at least to be almost finished. There was a builders' van in the drive.

Another shot of the bridge. Not it's best angle as from the other side it has "cutwater" piers, sharply pointed and facing the oncoming current.

But I'm showing this, not just for the bridge (and the mill ) but the big tree on the left.

It's an "arbres remarquablese" according to a notice next to it.

A bit(!) hard to read but I think it says it is a Sequoia planted in the 1830s.

But the question on the lips of Funsters won't be about trees it will be what happened to the mushrooms I collected at Forgés?

I fried them in butter, olive oil and garlic this morning.

Then served them on toast.



Sadly, they were not a complete success.

I used a Hugh Furnly -Wurnly recipe where you sweat a finely chopped clove of garlic in oil and butter for a minute or so then tip in the mushrooms. The problem was when I added the mushrooms the first thing they did was soak up all the liquid and the garlic then began to burn. I chucked in a big knob of butter but the damage was done. They were edible, I was hungry but it was not as nice as I was expecting. I'll try it again sometime but won't add the garlic until after the mushrooms start to cook.

At least it was only me who was disappointed, Mrs DBK considers garlic at breakfast a mortal sin. She put marmalade on her toast. Homemade marmalade of course.

 

[Potty]

[QUOTE="DBK, postI fried them in butter, olive oil and garlic this morning.

I used a Hugh Furnly -Wurnly recipe where you sweat a finely chopped clove of garlic in oil and butter for a minute or so then tip in the mushrooms. The problem was when I added the mushrooms the first thing they did was soak up all the liquid and the garlic then began to burn. I chucked in a big knob of butter but the damage was done. They were edible, I was hungry but it was not as nice as I was expecting. I'll try it again sometime but won't add the garlic until after the mushrooms start to cook.

At least it was only me who was disappointed, Mrs DBK considers garlic at breakfast a mortal sin. She put marmalade on her toast. Homemade marmalade of course.
[/QUOTE]
Next time, try adding a little water instead of the butter.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}

 

[DBK]

Next time, try adding a little water instead of the butter.

That's a good idea, it would keep the temperature down too. Lots of water comes out of the mushrooms as they start to cook but it is the period before that happens which was the problem.

 

[Stroppy Bird]

At least it was only me who was disappointed, Mrs DBK considers garlic at breakfast a mortal sin.

I have to agree with Mrs DBK on that.

Loving your posts and photos (and Charlie's blog as well of course).

 

[DBK]

The satnav took us on a cross-country route after we left Bourdeilles, it would have been quicker to have gone back to Brantôme before heading north-west but we were in no hurry.

A light drizzle fell on and off all morning and the weather was the reason we drove for nearly three hours yesterday. It was damp, so we though we could cheer ourselves up by going to the seaside.

But going cross-country in France, avoiding the main roads, can turn up interesting surprises.

Like this place.

It is on the outskirts of the small town of Villebois-Lavalette. We stopped to take the photo then later in the day I checked on Google maps for the name of the place, which threw up something else interesting.

Here is the satellite view map.

Yup, that's it, a château with a wall around it. But when you switch to the default map, this what it showed.

Hmm, a whopping big place Google doesn't seem to know about.

A bit more digging today revealed Google does have an entry for it but recorded at the wrong place on Google maps. I submitted an edit to Google which was almost immediately approved, to my surprise, although it still isn't showing the correct symbol for something like a château.

The place is the Château de Villebois Lavalette and the town has a good aire. We must come this way again and stay overnight. The reviews on Campercontact are a mixed bunch. Two give it a score of 9 but a miserable Brit gave it a 1 because they thought €2 for a jeton was a "rip off".

The château has a website with a little bit more information. It changed hands only recently.

Château de Villebois-Lavalette

Le site internet officiel du Château de Villebois-Lavalette en Charente, par l'association les amis du château et du patrimoine de Villebois-Lavalette.

www.chateaudevilleboislavalette.com

We stopped eventually at Royan on the north side of the mouth of the Gironde estuary.

This isn't a pretty place but that doesn't seem to put off visitors. The CCP aire was almost full when we arrived with only about 3 spaces left out of 40.

There is a big marina here and lots of restaurants around that part of the town but on our first excursion this double decker merry-go-round caught my attention. The sun came out in the afternoon as you can see.

I knew they had double decker trains in France but not double decker merry-go-rounds.

Today we walked to the front again but instead of turning right towards the fleshpots of Royan we turned left and walked the full length of the promenade, which is about two kilometres long.

This is looking back towards the marina and ferry port.

This photo is delightful.

The bloke is walking with the aid of two bits of kelp. Perfectly normal. But the lady is carrying something white. The sharp eyes of Mrs DBK spotted it.

She's carrying a parrot! And perfectly normal too. Who doesn't take their parrot for a kelp-assisted walk on a beach on Sunday mornings?

Other beach activities were more traditional.

Interesting sky.

But the main reason for coming this way was to have a look at the houses we had glimpsed in the distance yesterday.

Here's a selection.

The third and fourth photos show how these old houses are now surrounded by the modern stuff.

The phrase fin de siècle (end of the century) was scratching in my ear when I first saw these houses. But an estate agent''s window gave the answer. For €500K a smaller version and not on the front could be yours if you have the readies. And the description was debut de siècle suggesting these houses date from the early twentieth century, the noughties of the nineteen hundreds and presumably when Royan became a fashionable resort.

We plan to visit the Isle d'Oleron tomorrow. Seafood beckons.

 

[DBK]

We were not hugely impressed by Royan, it's an unattractive town and quite soulless. So we weren't disappointed to leave but the place obviously liked us and wanted us to stay. It achieved this by removing the road we wanted to leave on. Usually, roadworks in France which block a road have Deviation signs directing you around the blockage but Royan likes to hold on to its guests and considers Deviation signs cheating. We went round one block of buildings twice trying to find a route out but failed so we just headed in the wrong direction on a compass bearing which at least got us out of Royan. Once we had escaped the gravitational pull of Royan we could plot a route to get around it without venturing inside again, and perhaps never to be seen again.

A drive of less than hour took us to the Île d'Oléron and the aire at Château d'Oléron, CC25015. There is also a good campsite here much closer to the town which is only a few euros more but the walk from the aire isn't far and we are on hardstanding, useful when it rains, which it is this afternoon.

Château d'Oléron is a town within a fort and extensive walls facing the sea.

The town within the walls is nothing special but there is a small covered market in the centre. It was closed yesterday, this is a place where everything closes on Mondays but it was open this morning and we bought some oysters and mussels. The oysters I cooked for lunch and I'll start a separate thread about them later this afternoon.

If the town is a bit drab the same cannot be said of the port area.

There are scores of brightly coloured sheds, once part of the fishing and shellfish trade but now mostly either restaurants, small shops or workshops.

Here's a small selection. Note the ukulele builder.

Also in the port area is a bridge hung with oyster shells.

The explanation is on the notice.

Write your wish on a shell then tie it to the bridge and when the string rots through and the shell falls in the sea your wish will come true. So I guess our shell hasn't fallen off yet as it's still raining and the sun is nowhere to be seen.

Back at the aire a large MH of the "Great White" kind was having extra decals stuck on its sides. I suspect people will still hold out their hands at bus stops to request it to stop though. An impressive vehicle but with a massive overhang at the rear and such low ground clearance at the tail the manufacturer has had to put rollers under the rear bumper.

 

[DBK]

We continue slowly going north. Leaving the Île d'Oléron we didn't go far, stopping at the CCP aire at Port des Barques, on the coast just west of Rochefort.

This is a large aire with a surface of grit on a bleak, windswept peninsula. It has a service point but no EHU apart from a couple of sockets on the service point machine. If these are connected (I didn't check) you could use them to get 55 minutes of electrickery and with a long lead park away from the service point. We didn't need to as the sun shone on and off all day.

One of the reasons for coming here is the island just beyond the tip of the peninsula. But I hadn't done any research so we couldn't visit it. The road to the island is tidal and only possible around low tide.

This is the start of the road.

What it looks like at low tide will remain a mystery as it was high tide when we saw it. The causeway is certainly negotiable by cars and the is even a campsite on the island listed in Campercontact. It doesn't have any reviews yet for some reason. Now there's a challenge, we must return.

The island is the Île Madame.

If you look carefully the pale line going off to the right just below the island is the causeway. There are a lot of geocaches on the island.

There are alternatives to the aire here. By the Tourist Information office is a car park with two marked bays for MHs but these folk ignored them and were parked in car spots.

And there are two more on the road to the causeway on the outskirts of the town.

But the aire is very quiet and dark at night. Which might put some people off, we were the only ones there.

A longer drive today brought us to an aire chaser found, and it is a cracker.

Totally free, including now, free electricity.

It was very wet when we arrived so we have parked on the hard standing although a later French arrival has chosen the soggy grass.

The aire is on the edge of the small town of Prahecq south east of the city of Niort.i It isn't listed in Campercontact but is in Park4night. I've submitted a new entry to Campercontact so it might appear soon.

We walked into Prahecq this afternoon but the previously intermittent rain turned into a downpour so we made a quick retreat.

The aire, owned by the council, is next to the Château de la Voûte which I think they also own. It's a small place and needs some maintenance before it falls down.

The walls bulge in places.

And a few cracks to fix. Dick Strawbridge should buy the place.

Some of the doors and windows have intriguing carvings which I plan to photograph tomorrow as we are going to stay two nights here. Thanks chaser.

^{_{Subscribers  do not see these advertisements}}