Places

14
Sep
2021

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

POITIERS

Town Hall
Cathedrale of Saint Pierre
The new next to the old

L’IL DE RE

St Martin de Re
La Flotte I think
Beach of Gros Jonc
Sandie in her mode de marine 🙂

Next stop over to Gueret in the centre via Chatellerault again.

Posted by admin in France, Places
09
Sep
2021

Something new & French shores once more

Twinwood Festival

A first for me and van attending a music festival which more than exceeded my hopes. It didn’t pour down for the whole time, so the van was never at risk of getting mud-bound. It was all the better to be able to share the enjoyment with my daughter and son-in-law, and we had alot of fun, not least some jive for beginner lessons.

The range of music from the decades from 1930s upto the 70s – rockabilly, swing, soul, gypsy jazz, Frankie Valli tribute act, and more, was fantastic. Lots of people dressing up – here’s me doing a token bit, and below a snippet of the music and dance on offer. Highly recommend if you like music which puts a smile on your face, gets your feet moving, and encourages you to sing along. The musicianship from all the bands was excellent, and they were really pleased to be performing following their Covid lockdowns.

Portsmouth – Caen – Chatellerault

From the festival near Bedford, it was a smooth drive down to Portsmouth, and the ferry crossing found a calm sea. It was great to meet up with my brother and sister-in-law who had by chance booked onto the same crossing and, better still, enjoy their commodore class cabin for a rest after traipsing literally miles over the last few days.   

Fallout from Brexit meant that I waited about 45 mins after leaving the ferry for the French border control to check my passport and Covid vaccination certificate.  They didn’t check, and therefore confiscate, the remaining dairy produce in my fridge, so the next morning cup of tea did not have to resort to the hidden UHT carton.  By the time I got through the border it was about 10:30pm, then I had a drive to the stopover. Amazing achievement – I had made it into France!

This was a free aire about 20 miles south off the coast in the hamlet of Grainville-Langannerie outside the Mairie.  What a brilliant place – one other van there, and straightaway Blue felt at home, away from England’s current lack of provision, if not in some quarters disapproval.

But the next morning and checks prior to setting off revealed that the hissing of air sound I thought I heard while waiting at Portsmouth harbour, and didn’t check for a variety of reasons, had obviously been caused by my passenger rear tyre, which was pretty well flat!!! Tbh, if I had checked it I don’t know what I would have done at that point.

Google again sorted me out producing a tyre place 12 miles down the still empty main road, so drove gingerly there, and was of course delighted that they could sort me out. Good service as I’d experienced with the same problem 2 years ago on the way to Brittany in Monte2.

I was on my way again, via long, straight, non-toll non-busy, non-roadwork-hindered roads, to the house of friends from way back now living in France a few miles from Chatellerault.  Drove all day in effect mostly at 55 mph, but lots of slowing as the roads I took, whilst direct, still went through many small towns.  Blue sky, rising temperatures, taking note of the countryside in the departments of the Orne, Sarthe, and into the Deux Sevres (part of the Loire valley and plains) and arriving in the Vienne.

Posted by admin in Events, France
30
Jan
2020

Pride comes before …

My first trip away, since 3 days in beautiful North Wales in October, is the 6-mth awaited week’s skiing in La Thuile in Italy’s Aosta valley, just through the Mont Blanc tunnel past Courmayeur.

Day one skiing was my first time on skis for about 7 years. With some trepidation, but encouraged by the homies whose annual trip I’ve tagged along with, I felt that at the end of the day, having survived the final run down to have a Bombardino at the end of a …. RED, my mental and physical exhaustion had been truly vanquished.
Day two, and the plan took us over to the adjoining La Rosiere area in France, beautiful blue skies and sunshine, nice pistes, altho’ more learner snowboarders for my fear levels and liking on my blues than in Italy.
I made it in one piece to the coffee stop, but about to set off again, the day took a turning for the worse with the realisation that my skies and poles were nowhere to be found – some numpty (or worse) had obviously taken them. With 4 of us, it didn’t take long to check every other set of skis/poles, looking for a green pair with my name on a sticker which my friends were adamant were mine, but which my previously fantastic autopilot now failing in middle age had failed to clock!!, were just not there. So there we were high up the mountain over the border (and in the valleys at the other side of the M Blanc tunnel) in France and wtf – adequately conveys the sentiments – now?
Discussed various options, with the best one being that I would have to walk up hill and down dale for several miles along ski pistes in my ski boots down to la Rosiere, admittedly using chair lifts wherever possible, to hire another pair of skis to get me back, which my extremely competent ski buddies would the next day have to ski over with again for their return.
I called my ski hire place to ask them whether there was a ‘protocol’ for such a happening, which there wasn’t, or they didn’t know what goes on in France, but they would call me back. 10 minutes later in the return call, an extremely sheepish smile appeared on my face to the outbreak of hilarious laughter from my ski team, upon being told that it was I the numpty or worse, because in the morning, the bar where we had the Bombardino on my triumphant first day, opened to find a pair of skies and poles still outside having been left there since the day before, with my name on them. In my exhausted, but pride comes before a fall stupor, I had managed to fit my boots into the skis from another unfortunate who had hired these from a rental shop in Courmayeur, and absconded in smug satisfaction at having conquered the day intact.
Fortunately for that unfortunate, the bar was more or less back at La Thuile, so they would only have had to walk downhill for 5 mins in their ski boots before presumably reaching their mode of transport to get them back to Courmayeur.
I’m not entirely sure how my ski rental was able to inform me that I should now look for a pair of skis with a label from Courmayeur, Mont Blanc 4810, because they would be the ones I had been using all morning.Sure enough, in a couple of minutes flat, it was ascertained that the skis and poles placed solitarily which I had indeed thought were surely where I had left mine, did have the Courmayeur Mont Blanc sticker, so the confusion that I had felt when thinking my skis were red, but my companions telling me they were green was also explained.
As if this was not enough, I repeated the same again leaving the next bar stop, even more exhausted, when I picked up my friend’s skis instead of my ‘borrowed’ red ones. At least with these, I would have failed to get my boots into the bindings, and have spent a fair bit of faff, trying to understand why!
On my return to my ski rental, they wanted me to walk the 5 minutes (took at least 20) back up the red run in my boots to go and pick up my very ownest skis from Le Petit Skieur. For those who know the exhausted weariness of the learner or fearful skier at the end of a day’s sking, the rich with meaning answer NO to the question from my friends “Did you not feel the difference when you put on those other skis???” would be easily understood.
As it happens, Day 3 was a whiteout, so a 24-hr stop-gap ski rental from La Rosiere would not have been carryable over the tops back to la belle france anyway.
This is a beautiful place, even in the 5 miles walk through thick snowfall of day 3. Really enjoying the company, experience, exercise and trauma.😀

Posted by admin in Italy, Places
04
Oct
2019

Harrogate welcomes the world – UCI Cycling World Championship

Given that I had intended being away when this event came to town, and based back in Longridge, Lancashire again, I had decided not to put my brain to the task of understanding the week’s schedule and how best to navigate the major road closures, as well as where to sofa-surf or driveway camp so that I could be part of it all.

Serendipity stepped in again though to enable me nevertheless to be a very happy spectator caught up in a world sporting event taking place in my home town and particularly as where my brother, and friends the next day, chose to stand for the women’s and men’s elite events respectively, was in the vicinity of what had become a european motorhome unofficial aire.

With delight, particularly as the first day delivered bright sunshine and blue sky after 24 hours of pouring rain, driving for many of those hours from a day-old stay despite weather forecast in the Lake District to the van manufacturer to try (in vain) to get a leak which appeared for the first time in Monte2 corrected, I realised that though I was not across the channel as part of a continental motorhoming tribe, it had actually come unexpectedly to me! (A very long sentence I know!) The cycling did of course figure 🙂

  • Men’s Elite ultimately 3rd, 2nd, & winner

What a fantastic event to in the end be led by circumstances and reacting decisions, and despite the appalling rain on the Sunday, I was so glad to have been there.

Partying between laps 🙂
Posted by admin in Cities-Towns, Events, Places, The Good
16
Sep
2019

Unplanned early return & tears for brexit

Just 2 weeks after I wrote the post on the ferry heading for Calais, I am writing again on the ferry in the other direction, heading home early due to family illness.

In Switzerland I was hedging my onward options due to the situation – not wanting to travel further east and south – so I took the opportunity in the decision time to join my sister and her husband on a campsite at Le Lavandou on the French Mediterranean coast, where I have stayed twice before. I was able to be an extra person and vehicle on their double-sized expensive pitch – so cheap for being on a 5-star campsite in that location! – and enjoyed 3 lovely days of more Summer.

This area and the medieval town of Bormes Les Mimosas is beautiful.

The past 3 weeks hold the record for the miles/kilometres driven, and having made the decision that I should return to the UK, I have certainly covered territory in 2 days: 9 hours driving from Le Lavandou to Beaune in Burgundy, mid-way up France, and a further 7 hour to the ferry, with cruise control all the way and Monte2 fantastic. More than 300 miles from Dover up to Lancashire.

So it’s a goodbye again as I sit at the rear of the ship and look southwards at Calais receding into the late afternoon, early Autumn sunlight. I wanted to record the really unexpected wave of sadness which swept over me earlier as the town came into view from the motorway heading to the French coast, the realisation hitting that this would probably be the last time for me before the UK leaves the EU.

I am happy to admit to the depth of this feeling – and to explain it as being like a grief for the ending of my own personal relationship with the EU – and France in particular over the years – and all its potential options that I have taken for granted as being part of my life since I started studying French and German at university in the late 70s. All this emotion found its echo coincidentally and most unexpectedly in those moments by the randomly-ordered Stevie Wonder tracks I was listening to. I did choose to ‘go with’ all the emotions and associated reflection.

My hope is that Brexit will sooner or later become in reality only a bad dream, as I thought it was when I woke up the morning after the referendum 3 years ago. I am a citizen of the UK, but will always feel that my valued citizenship of the wider European grouping known as the EU has been taken away from me on spurious grounds and on balance for no real benefit in the complex, interdependent world of now. I have much sympathy for those EU nationals who’ve been resident in countries other than their own for many years, who now feel everything’s up in the air, beyond their control, and ‘no longer wanted’,

Came across this building – see the caption above the door – in a little Swiss hamlet near the Italian border.

Posted by admin in France, Musings, Places
08
Sep
2019

“Take as a gift whatever the day brings forth” Horace

I am currently in my second swiss campsite following my friend in her campervan, where the above quote is pinned up. Yesterday I arrived at the first campsite at Davos Rinerhof at 1500m after 3 hours of driving through pouring rain, following a night of pouring rain, and feeling the same ridiculous ‘height fear’ as I followed the (very good swiss) roads, higher and higher. Ruminating on the whole ‘why am I not driving to the sunshine’ self-imposed pressure and catastrophising :)!!, by the time I arrived, I had already done enough speaking sternly to myself to change my mindset to precisely the sentiments I read, as I drank my friend-provided welcome cup of tea! Later on the rain stopped and we caught a bus and walked back along the valley through Davos, where I had stayed in Hotel Bunda with some of the family for our very first skiing holiday way back when. I also enjoyed a week’s skiing a second time in this place, when I went with another family several years later. Good times.

Today I awoke to the predicted snow, but put my trust in the forecast that southern Switzerland near Lugano would reach the heady heights of 20 deg. Gritted ones teeth to follow the satnav slightly higher before descending to get on the main road which then climbed to the San Bernadino tunnel.

I am genuinely in awe of the swiss road system, (railways also), and the same in France, as they forge their way in tunnels through around and up mountains. I don’t think we have anything remotely similar in the UK. Having popped out of the other end of the San Bernadino tunnel from a world of falling snow and 1.5deg into light, distant blue sky and sunshine, the amazing road descent in the most beautiful setting did deliver a new climate of the hoped-for 20 degrees.

Still in Switzerland just, we are now on Camping Tresiana between Lakes Lugano and Maggiore. Having a glass of wine to celebrate my success – glad I’ve not wasted £500 – having just received my diploma certificate, with my old, now ‘midult’ friend Carole, a mere 43 years after we went on our first youth-hostelling holiday together. We don’t look a day older!

My plan as of a few days ago which is still the intention, is to drive to northern Croatia this week and hopefully meet up with some other motorhoming friends, but there is potentially a spanner in the works, which may cause this to change.

Posted by admin in Cities-Towns, Places, Switzerland