First of all I have to say ‘Oh dear! Oh dear! Oh dear!’ for the three identical pictures that appeared on last week’s blog. I know the donkey was cute but not so cute that three pictures of it had to appear. However, by the time I had finished fighting with the computer and the programme that puts the pictures into my blog, I just gave up. Three identical pictures was, I thought, better than three half photographs which is what I kept getting before that.
Our week has been an eventful one, for a change. As Pieter and Jessica were due to fly out again on Tuesday, we thought spending Monday at St Emillion would be a good idea. Jessica is a great wine lover, not that she drinks much of it, but she knows a lot about it, and one can’t get better than St Emillion for good wines. It took about an hour to drive there on a glorious sunny day; then we parked and walked the rest of the way into town. St Emillion is a beautifully restored medieval town and there is plenty to see there, apart from wine shops. The town is surrounded by numerous vineyards, so after a leisurely lunch in the main square, we caught the Tourist Train (which looks like a little toy train) and went for a tour around some of the vineyards in the immediate vicinity. We also stopped off at one particular vineyard for a tour of their cellars which are underground. Apparently, stone for building most of the grand houses in the area came from huge limestone deposits underground and cutting blocks out to bring to the surface left enormous caverns which are ideal for wine storage.
After driving an hour in each direction up and down the motor way on two consecutive days, we pronounced Wednesday a day of rest and recovery. This section of the motorway is very busy as it is part of the main road from Paris (and the Channel ports) to Spain, and one comes across trains of trucks one after the other – perhaps thirty at a time. They are not allowed to overtake where the road is only two lanes wide, in each direction, so they trail each other at fifty kilometres an hour which is their prescribed speed. Cars, of course, are allowed to pass the trucks, but it can be quite nerve-wracking when a lot of them are close together and one only has a little car!
On Thursday we started off by going to the village market in Montendre, where we spent about an hour looking at the stalls. I have had an absolute craving for a juicy roast chicken for simply ages, so I was delighted to find a fellow with a mobile rotisserie selling both chickens and ducks. We quickly bought one before he sold out, and my mouth watered for the rest of the day until we could get home to eat it!. Our homeward trip was a circular drive which included the villages of Bussac, in the forest; Bedenac; and Montguyon, which is where friends of ours have a house, and which is where we stayed when Neels recuperated from his operation in 2008. The next evening we actually went back there again to have dinner with these friends.
We stayed out so late that the next morning we slept until 10 o’clock! When we eventually surfaced, we found the day was chilly and grey, but later that afternoon we went for a good walk through the town to inspect an old windmill on the far side which has been well restored.
On Easter Sunday we again slept late, but we put it down to the fact that the flat is quite dark with the curtains drawn, especially if the day is rather cloudy. However, we had decided the previous day that we should really get out and about, and that we would aim for Aubeterre about 40 kilometers away. We asked ‘Jane’ to take us there by the shortest route which we know, by now, means that the device will select back roads, by-roads and farmers backyards to get us where we are going and she did not disappoint us. We stopped off in Chalais, where we once had a meal in a chateau, before arriving at our destination. The town is built on two levels, with a fairly steep difference between the two, so we had to park at the top and walk down, first to the main square where we enjoyed a very late lunch, and then on to a most extraordinary church, hewn by hand out of the limestone cliffs. The feudal lord who owned the chateau in the high part on the town decided that he would like to have his own church under the chateau, and after ten years of digging, a church was produced. It is 70 meters high and 26 meters across, with a gallery running around the top with windows in the inner walls to enable the nobles’ wives and other females to look down on the services that were taking place below. To one side of the nave is a massive reliquary which is supposedly carved from a single piece of stone, but my query is this – how does one get a relic into a solid piece of stone? Whatever………..the whole place is very impressive and was well worth the entrance fee.
On the way back, we just had to stop and take a picture of yet another road sign. We have been very aware of the numerous signs which warn of antelope jumping into, out of or across the road, without seeing any of the animals themselves, but this road sign may well explain the absence of buck on the road. Apparently in this part of the world, they fly!
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