I’m not
sure where the time’s gone, but it’s 4 weeks tomorrow since we arrived in
Calais and started our Euro meanderings.
Our blog
updating has become a little more intermittent as we settle into a slower and
all together less organised existence!
Although we’re away, we’re technically not on holiday, so we don’t feel
ourselves rushing around trying to take in every single sight for fear of
running out of time. Maybe a faux pas,
as we won’t necessarily be visiting the same parts of countries twice, but if
we played tourists every day for two years, we’d frankly be exhausted, so we’re
just bumbling along.
On Thursday,
we left St Nazaire and headed to St Hillaire en Reiz, heading over the St
Nazaire bridge as mentioned in my previous post. The views would have been stunning had there
been anything worthwhile to look at! As
it was, it was a fairly uninspiring, if very high, bridge crossing; at least it
didn’t cost us anything to cross it.
Bridge
crossed, we made a much needed fuel stop (of the Dora and human variety) at a
newly discovered supermarket called Casino.
For a while, we had not actually realised that they were anything but
what the name suggests....doh. Cupboards
heaving from the re-supply, we carried on our journey, managing to fill up with
free water en route, thanks to Pete’s progressively miserly beady eye!
We arrived
at the free overnight stop at St Hillaire to greying clouds and what we later
found out was to be a very windy night.
Pete moved Dora round a bit to save us getting too battered by the
wind, but unfortunately the wind direction changed by a good 90 degrees in the
night, so we still ended up bearing the brunt of it.
It was partly
due to the crappy weather on the Atlantic coast and partly due to a wish to see
more green parts of France that prompted us to rethink our route and make the
decision to head inland. We’re not the
best at making decisions about where to go and sticking with them as there are
so many other alternatives, so I think our route will be pretty zig zaggy for most
of the trip.
On Friday,
after next to no sleep, we decided that we would definitely seek solace inland,
if only temporarily, to catch up on our "Zs".
Our initial choice of Fontenay le Comte was soon cancelled as it was
right next to very busy main road and we ended up at Coulon. At €7.50, it was more expensive than our
aires bible claimed, but we’re finding that a lot, so always aim off to pay
more. Water and loos were included in
the price, so we made sure to leave with a full tank of water the next day,
along with a clean and empty loo (it’s not all glamour!).
Feeling refreshed
after a peaceful night, Saturday saw us heading to the home of one of Pete’s
favourite drinks; Cognac. After parking
in the free aire, across the river from the Hennessey empire (see picture) and
discovering that cognac houses aren’t open on a Sunday out of season, we made a
sharp exit and found the nearest supermarket so that Pete could treat himself
to an early birthday bottle of Cognac.
Being the sweetheart he is and as I’m not a fan of cognac, he also bought
me a bottle of pineau! As an aside, I’d never actually heard of it until
a few days ago when it was mentioned in passing during a conversation with
Francie. I now know it’s very tasty!! We had planned to spend the night in Cognac,
but decided to find a more rural spot for the night.
Unfortunately, thanks to Hazel, our trusty sat
nav (or so we thought...), we ended up 30kms short of our planned
destination. When we finally got fed up
of Hazel trying to navigate us off road, we realised why...the coordinates had
actually been input incorrectly, not once, but twice, by Pete and then me – sorry
Hazel!
After
re-programming Hazel with the right coordinates, we finally arrived at
Aubeterre sur Dronne in darkness and hoped that we had managed to park in the
right place and that we hadn’t lucked out on location.
It turned
out to be blissfully quiet and come morning, we weren’t disappointed. It’s a lovely little village, perched on a hillside
as we’re discovering so many of the villages round here are.
After a wander
around the village to take some pictures, we were on the road again, headed for
the Dordogne valley.
After
stopping off for an hour in La Roque Gageac, another stunning hillside village,
we headed to our resting place for the night, Domme. We have again, yet to see it in daylight, but
if the other villages around here are anything to go by, it’s a fair bet that
it won’t be a disappointment.
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