Thelma & Louise go Place in the Sun

LOOKING FOR A NEEDLE …….. FRANCE IS BIG

It didn’t take long for my sister Sandie & I to be reminded of the above! She had decided also to come to France in her van (we like to think of ourselves as T & L, but I’m never quite sure which one I am) and join me in exploring around Poitiers as a potential area for buying some kind of cheap (relatively, and therefore in need of some renovation) property, before driving over to L’Il de Re to spend a few days cycling and enjoying the seaside.

I stayed a couple of days at the beautiful house of my friends about 6km from Chatellerault visiting Richlieu and then cycling over to the village of Ingrandes only 9 km away where purely by coincidence Sandie had booked a campsite Le Petit Trianon .

We spent one day driving to Chauvigny and round and about before moving to the municipal site at Thouars just south of the Loire, then considering other small towns between there and Parthenay including Saint Loup and Airvault. It’s quite difficult to be able to assess a property’s location without making a formal booking to view with an estate agent. Meagre clues plus alot of time spent on Google Earth did deliver the location of 2 listed properties, despite one having two ‘near to’ about 30kms apart in the description!!

The main criteria include of course budget, but also somewhat rural less than 10km proximity to a village/town with some life including eg boulangerie and preferably still active train station.

The roads are fantastic, but ground has to be covered and it certainly takes longer than looking at a list of properties in a town location.

The objectives of this part of the trip crystallized for me into a validation of this area of France as a potential for actually living here for a time. The next stage of the project I think would need to be putting my house up for rent and then either getting a seasonal pitch or renting somewhere here and getting my car down, so that the property search can have the more prolonged focus & effort it needs.

Thelma & Louise decided to go separate ways for a couple of days as I stayed at the campsite at St Benoit – very nice little town within cycling distance of Poitiers – and enjoyed my afternoon spent exploring the historic centre of Poitiers,, which is a key site for Alienor (Eleanor) of Aquitaine, mother of Richard The Lionheart and King John – yes of our Robin Hood fame. S went to Il de Re as planned and as the forecast for the weekend was fantastic I decided to follow her there, for our 3rd visit over the years since the first when my eldest was a baby – 1990!!

Once again the whole island was as lovely as a film set tbh. Busy enough given it’s now low season, but temperatures upto 28 degrees, although cool and pleasant in the pine trees, not to mention the sea itself which we indeed went in.

ST BENOIT