Montbron Judith’s parents bought a house in France a few months ago, so we thought is was time we went to see how they were getting on. After much heated debate, we decided to drive there in my little Honda as it hadn’t had a good Euro run out since we took it on the ferry to Santander in 2009 (good grief, was it really that long ago!).
Bad Start Thursday - We ducked out of work early on the Thursday before Good Friday (I even went so far as to squander an actual half-day of holiday) to be able to drive down to Folkestone in time to catch a train over to Calais for an overnight stop. However, Eurotunnel had other ideas, having had "an incident in the Tunnel", which had created delays of around five hours! Given that we hadn't been scheduled to arrive in Calais until 23:30 as it was, a five hour delay was going to be catastrophic.Fortunately we received an e-mail notifying us of the issues just before we set off for Folkestone. We had a quick hunt on the Internet and found a (relatively) cheap ferry crossing from Dover that was scheduled to leave at around the same time as our train. So we booked that and decided to square things with the Eurotunnel people later.
Packing Having pretty much used up all of the available space in the boot, off we headed to Dover.
Ferry It was an extra tenner-or-so for priority embarkation/disembarkation, which turned out to be a tenner-or-so well spent. We were about the sixth car on (as you can see here) and were in the restaurant eating Lamb Balti long before most of the passengers even saw the inside of the ferry. We were also about the sixth car off and were probably checking in to our hotel in Calais before the last of the passengers disembarked.However, the ferry was still a generally miserable experience compared to the (usually) quick and efficient service offered by the Eurotunnel. Although the ferry got me out of a hole this time, I don't think I'll be switching my allegiance from the Tunnel any time soon.
Sunny Friday - We were up and out of the Calais hotel not quite as early as I would have liked, but the weather was lovely as we set off South/West along the A16 motorway. Although we had planned to try to stay off the motorways as much as possible, we wanted to cover a bit of ground early to give us time to dawdle later in the day.This was taken at a rest area on the A16 near Le Touquet, looking towards the Reserve Naturelle de la Baie de la Canche (I think).
McDonald's We pressed on down the motorway until we got to Rouen, where we had a bit of a nightmare and ended up in the middle of town, which we really didn't want to do. So we stopped at a McDonald’s for a bite to eat and to consider our options.
Countryside After a while we found our way out of Rouen and back into the deserted French countryside. A driving paradise indeed.
Countryside We spent the afternoon winding across the French countryside on deserted roads like this. If the weather is good and you have the time to spare, this is a much nicer way to cross France than the (still impressive) motorways.
Fleuray Late in the afternoon we arrived at our overnight stop - the fabulous Hotel Le Fleuray, which is situated about 25 miles East of Tours.
Fleuray View A view across the fields opposite the hotel.
Stars After a very nice dinner in the hotel's restaurant, as it was a clear night I went outside to take some photos. This was taken from near the hotel's patio, looking more or less South.
Stars This is a view of the hotel, looking North. It looks like I could have done with a slightly shorter shutter speed as the lights of the hotel are somewhat overexposed. Unfortunately, as these sort of photos take the best part of half-an-hour each to take, and it was probably about 23:30 when I finished taking this one, I didn't feel inclined to hang about and have another go.
Garden View Saturday - This was the view of the garden at the West side of the hotel from our room. Given that the hotel has a swimming pool, hot tub and a tennis court (in addition to its excellent restaurant), I could quite happily have hung around for longer. But after breakfast it was time to press on.
Menet Although the countryside was beautiful, there didn't seem to be much point repeatedly stopping to take photos of it. So we pressed on until we finally arrived in Montbron late in the afternoon.This is a photo of Judith standing in front of the house we were staying in at Menet. Or maybe the house was called Menet. Either way, there was a signpost to Menet at the end of the track we turned down to get there. Unfortunately we hadn't rented the whole thing, although that was probably just as well given that it would have been rather more accommodation than the two of us needed for a week.
Tardoire View This was the view of the river Tardoire from where Judith was standing in the last photo.
Mill View This is a view of the house from the adjacent mill, looking across the weir.Having unpacked the car, we popped into the supermarket in Montbron to stock up on essentials like wine and Pringles before going to meet up with Judith's parents for dinner in the local Italian restaurant.
Stars I took this from in front of the house, by the river, looking at the stars above the trees across the river. If I'd thought about it a bit more, I could have illuminated the trees with my torch to make the photo a bit more interesting.
Stars Next to the house and mill is an old, empty chateau. These are some of the chateau's outbuildings. This time I did remember to illuminate the scenery with my torch, which I think improves the general ambience of the picture significantly. Although I did nearly jump out of my skin when I saw a pair of shining eyes peering at me through that window in the wall in the middle of the photo.
Honda Sunday - It was another beautiful day, so while I was waiting for Judith to feel the inclination to try to drag herself out of bed, I took my Honda a hundred yards up the track to take some photos of it in front of the chateau's outbuildings.If you're not interested in Hondas or bits of chateaus, you'd best just skip over the next half-a-dozen photos.
Honda
Honda Last one.
Mill While the weather was nice and I was out with my camera and tripod, I thought I'd be as well to get a few photos around the house too. This is a photo of the mill adjacent to the house from the lawn.
Mill The same view, but from further back.
House and Garden There's quite a lot going on in this photo. So, from the left:- The arch into the vegetable garden.- In the distance, the mill.- Judith and the owner of the property, Ron.- The end of the main house.- The pidgeonaire. Basically, the most impressive pidgeon loft I've ever seen.- In the distance, the roof of the chateau.
Chateau This is a slightly better view of the chateau, although the main building is still somewhat obscured by trees and outbuildings.
Walking Once Judith was up and about, we thought we’d go for a walk along the track that runs East from the house, broadly parallel with the river.
Bridge Judith on a bridge over the Tardoire.
Different Bridge Judith on a different bridge over the Tardoire.
ND10 I thought I’d have a go at photographing the weir with my ND10 filter. Considering this is a 15 second exposure, the weir doesn’t look significantly different to a normal photo. Doh!
ND10 Here’s the colour version of the same photo.
La Rochefoucauld Monday - Still sunny out so we decided to drive to the nearby town of La Rochefoucauld, where they have an impressive chateau, as you can see from the photo.
Stairs In the chateau, one of the towers contains this impressive spiral staircase.
Corridor A view down one of the corridors overlooking the central courtyard.
Chateau A view of the chateau.
Chateau Another view of the chateau.
Restaurant Back outside, despite the fact that the board outside this restaurant said it was only open for lunch from 12-2 Tuesday to Sunday, they still appeared to be open at 3pm on Easter Monday, so we popped in for a very nice bite to eat.
Chateau and Bridge A final look at the chateau from across the river before we left La Rochefoucauld.
Memorial Having left La Rochefoucauld, we headed to Charente to have a look at the memorial to the French Resistance.
Memorial
Memorial This was the view from in front of the memorial.
Memorial There are lots and lots of war graves here.
Le Chambon On our way back to Montbron we passed a sign to the Gorges du Chambon. As gorges are generally pretty interesting and scenic, we thought we’d go and have a look. We didn’t entirely find a gorge, but we did find Le Chambon, an activity centre set in some very pretty countryside.As it was getting late in the afternoon and we were having dinner with Judith’s parents and their friends in the evening, we decided not to loiter about at Le Chambon and just made a mental note to come back for a better look another day.
Montbron Back in Montbron and we had a little time to kill before dinner, so Judith’s dad took us for a brief tour of Montbron. Here we are looking at some affordable housing.
405 Mi-16 Just round the corner from Judith’s parents house I came across this well preserved Peugeot 405 Mi-16. I had one of these many years ago (although mine was white) and there are hardly any left now as even the newest of them would be would be around 20 years old. The wheels on this one mark it out as being one of the early models from 1988/89 (the same as the one I had). Marvelous. I hope it’s still here the next time we come to visit.
Sunset There was just time to enjoy the sunset before dinner and a walk home in the dark.
Launderettte Tuesday - Nothing particularly unusual about a launderette, except that this one is outdoors, in the car park of the local supermarket. Presumably in the French countryside there is a steady demand for being able to wash and dry your laundry at any time of the day or night?
Le Chambon The weather was proving to be a bit changeable and challenging on this day, but we decided to pop back to Le Chambon for a look around. In addition to the activity centre, there’s also a restaurant and campsite, where you can bring your own tent/caravan, or rent one of theirs.As we’d been to the supermarket earlier, we had bread and cheese and meaty things in the boot of the car, i.e. the basic components of a picnic. So we set of to look for somewhere nice to sit and have lunch.
Water Rat After not very long we found ourselves by the river (still the Tardoire I think). Whilst walking along the bank looking for a possible picnic site, we saw this swimming in the river. It was like a big rat, but about the size of a large cat. As far as we can tell, it’s a coypu. Evidently the locals weren’t too keen on them as we saw a lot of traps by the river.
Water Rats In about ten minutes we saw several of them. They seemed harmless enough, but I wouldn’t want to meet one in the dark (like when I was taking the star trail photos a couple of nights ago!).
Menet Garden Back at the house at Menet, these were some of the flowers planted by our hosts.
Pidgeonaire A nice view of the pidgeonaire.
Barn The barn bit of the house we were staying in has been converted into this lovely communal lounge/bar area. This was a very relaxing place to sit and watch the river, particularly when the weather is a bit showery, as it was on this day.
Barn
Barn View The view from the barn lounge.
Sunset Having loitered about all afternoon drinking wine and generally being very relaxed, we though we’d best go out for a bit and stretch our legs. So we walked to the other mill, which was about a mile away from where we were staying, and over the new footbridge into Montbron. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to get any photos of the mill or footbridge in the fading light. Shortly afterwards the sun set. Time to head home.
Stars Despite the showery day, once the sun was down all of the clouds evaporated. So I went down by the river with my tripod and programmable shutter release, hoping to meet no coypu. I didn’t meet any coypu, but I did get this nice photo of the stars, along with a few plane trails. In the 30 minutes I was talking this photo, I saw six shooting stars. Two of them went right across the area I was photographing, but unfortunately weren’t bright enough to show up.
Pidgeonaire By the time I’d finished the previous photo, it was about 23:30 and I didn’t fancy setting up for another 30 minute shot. So I just took this single exposure of the pidgeonaire. I had to illuminate it with my torch, which is a bit trial and error. I think it could probably have done to have been a little more illuminated than this, but it’s still turned out quite nice.
Jail? Wednesday - Not a jail. It’s the window into Judith’s parents barn.
Chateau After taking a few photos in Judith’s parents garden, we decided to walk to the mill that Judith and I walked to the previous evening for some lunch. It’s a lovely walk. This is a photo of Judith and her parents approaching one of the chateaux that one passes along the way. There really are a lot of chateaux around here.
Chateau And this is the other chateau. This one looks like it is in a most excellent state of repair.
Bridge This is the new footbridge that I couldn’t take a photo of the previous evening due to the fading light. It’s quite impressive.
Mill Restaurant This is the mill restaurant, which had only recently opened. Lunch was excellent.
Weir This is the weir next to the restaurant.
Oradour-dur-Glane After lunch, Judith and I drove to have a look at the village of Oradour-sur-Glane. On Saturday 10th June 1944, German troops massacred 642 civilians here and basically destroyed the village. To remember the event, the village was fenced off and has been left pretty much unchanged. It’s a very sobering place to visit, but highly recommended.
Visitor Centre Entrance to the village is through this impressively low profile visitor centre.
Oradour-sur-Glane The preserved area is surprisingly large, with dozens of derelict buildings like this.
Oradour-sur-Glane There are also many burned out cars. Apparently the custodians have a bit of an issue with these because so far everything in the village has been left untouched. But the cars are basically rusting away to nothing and need to be actively preserved if they are to survive for much longer.
Oradour-sur-Glane
Oradour-sur-Glane It was fairly late when we left Oradour-sur-Glane, so we went home for some dinner and a(nother) lovely bottle of local wine.
Cows Thursday - Went to La Rochefoucauld again to have lunch with Judith’s parents and their friends. Three course lunch for eight - EUR111. Now that’s what I call excellent value for money. And it was very nice indeed.After lunch we went for a look around the Palais de l-Automobile in La Rochefoucauld, which is garage that has an amazing selection of cars for sale. If you’re at all interested in cars, you should definitely try to pop in here for a look. Just don’t go around lunchtime as, like most places in rural France, they’re shut from 1 to 3.We got home late in the afternoon and just chilled out for the rest of the day. Like we were on holiday or something. In an almost unprecedented turn of events for being on holiday, I took no photos all day!
Garden Friday - Originally we’d intended to head home today, giving us two days for a leisurely drive home. However, as the weather forecast wasn’t brilliant for a cross-country, top-down drive, plus we were having a very nice time in and around Montbron, we thought we’d hang around for an extra day.So after breakfast we popped round to see Judith’s parents. This is a view of part of their garden.
Loft View This is the view from one of the windows on the top floor of their house. Notice that there is no glass in the window, as is the French style for these sort of houses!
Marthon This Judith and her dad looking at the keep at Marthon.
Grotte de Villars After leaving Marthon, we went for a very nice (and impressively cheap) lunch at (or near) Sers.After lunch we went to have a look at the Grotte de Villars, a very impressive set of caves with stalactites and stalagmites and that sort of thing. Unfortunately photos are not permitted (cheeky), so I have no record of the brilliant stuff we saw. So my only memory of the Grotte de Villars is this photo of Judith and her dad.In the evening we went for a farewell dinner in the local Italian restaurant.
Our House When we got back to Menet, I remembered to take a couple of photos of our house before it got dark.
Our House
Lane The lane outside our house.
Eurotunnel Saturday - Our extra day in Montbron yesterday meant that we had to drive all the way home today - 500 miles to Calais and then another 100 miles from Folkestone back to Fleet. I think that was probably my biggest ever single day of driving in my Honda, which is far from suited to a 500 mile motorway slog. It was a relief to get on the train at Calais and stretch my legs for half an hour.Due to the fact that we had so far to drive, there was little opportunity to stop and take any photos, hence the reason the only photo I took all day was this one of Judith on the train.We’ve had a fabulously relaxing week and look forward to visiting the region again soon.Total distance driven during the week - 1,435 miles (that’s three quarters of the total distance I drove my Honda last year!)