Cognac to Saintes

Friday 4th June
Cognac to Sainte

As we are in yet another ‘departement’ the map of the excellent bike routes has run out. So first stop the tourist office to see if there was anything similar, as it is gloriously easy when they spoon feed you a route with helpful signs all the way along. Sadly they concentrate more on the brandy side of tourism here unsurprisingly, and don’t seem to have many visitors on bikes. Anyway we managed to work out a route all by ourselves, following the river towards Saintes. I think the Charante is up there with the Tarn for beauty. Every village has several perfect houses just waiting for someone a bit younger and more energetic than us to take it on.

Empty houses on our route

This one even had it's own

watermill for generating

electricity

The trouble with French Inheritance laws is that no property can be left to an individual it has to be divided amongst all of the siblings. As many families appear not to get on well enough to make a rational decision and with petty jealousies running high an enormous number of beautiful houses and estates appear to be simply wasting away whilst no-one can make a decision as to what to do.

Huge wire cages full of maize which we thought must be for animal feed (or pheasants) but actually are for making a very yellow and delicious bread.

It has been getting hotter and hotter as the week has progressed and today topped 32 degs. The morning was fine as there was a cool breeze alongside the river, and we stopped for lunch at a picnic spot with a stream beside it.

Our lunch spot, Vivi is in there somewhere.

We both got in for a paddle and it was bliss. By mid afternoon the roads were radiating heat like an oven so we arrived in Saintes not a moment too soon. I felt like a boiled lobster and had to hide behind a bush and pour water all over myself to try to cool off. Alec somehow manages to keep cool in all situations.
We were hoping to find somewhere outside Saintes as we had already been here last year. As usual all our vague plans came to nothing as the b and b’s and hotels were mostly full.

The old Roman entrance to the city.

The tourist office was very helpful, and better still had air conditioning so we were able to hide in there and cool down. Outside there was a museum of Roman Columns and other artefacts which was very interesting.

Saintes cathedral which we last visited on a wet and cold morning in October.

Last time we had seen the Roman amphitheatre but had not crossed the river. We made it to the top of the hill which surrounds Saintes and fell into the first available hotel beside all the Macdonalds, Leclercs supermarkets and shopping malls. We went next door to the French equivalent of The Buffalo Grill, named Le Boucherie where you can eat anything grilled on charcoal as long as it is meat. It was actually very good.
Also staying in our hotel were an English couple who arrived looking very hot and sticky having just covered 499 miles from Madrid in a day on their Triumph motor bike. Vivi suggested they went out again and around the roundabout a couple of times to make it 500, but Mrs Biker said she had a BSA and wasn’t sitting on that thing again until tomorrow! We decided that we preferred our mode of transport even if we had only managed to cover the 30 miles from Cognac!