We had booked our accommodation on a bed and breakfast basis but the English owners Pat & John also offered evening meals provided they were booked during breakfast that day. We had booked a dinner for the evening on the day we arrived. Dinner cost 13 euros each and started at 19:30 with aperitifs on the terrace, followed by a typical 4 course French style meal, served in the oak beamed dining room, consisting of a starter course, a main course, a cheese course and a sweet course, followed by coffee, all washed down with copious supplies of red wine, finishing about 23:00 just before retiring to bed. The food was marvelous but by 23:30, after 2 days of travelling, the attraction and comfort of the bed could not be surpassed. It is worth noting that Pat is a registered nurse and on the ground floor of the farmhouse they have 2 specially built rooms for wheel chair users. They are able to offer holidays for both accompanied and unaccompanied disabled guests. The next day, Monday dawned sunny and hot, after a traditional French breakfast of juice, cereal, croissants and coffee we set off on foot to explore the village we were staying in. The first of the three bars in the village was about 150m from the guesthouse and we later found that all three were within about 500m. There was a supermarket, bakers, butchers, tobacconists etc all with about the same distance. By about 11.00 it was getting very hot and so we retired to a bar, to partake of liquid refreshment and a light lunch. There was a TV on in the bar, that was being switched between the results of the French general election and a world cup football match dependant on the whims of the locals. Watching a Brazilian footballer score a goal many times over, thanks to the repeats from every angle possible, seemed to take priority over the president's acceptance speech. We found that by mid afternoon we were tired, probably the travelling the previous day, so we returned to the guesthouse for a rest. Eventually, we finished the afternoon off with a swim in the pool and then prepared for the evenings Bar B Que. Again this was a meal of 4-5 courses and the red wine flowed throughout. The time creeps up on you and no matter how hard you try to stifle it, you yawn and signify your ready for bed. Next morning we woke about 8,00 to find the sun already up and hot. The lizards that live around the walls were laid on the stone windowsill taking the sun. After breakfast we set off on the trike for Bressuire the nearest town about 20Km away. We arrived and it was market day, so much time was spent wandering through the stalls, looking at the various wares etc. We obtained a ready filled French stick from a bakers' and sat in the town square by the bandstand to eat this for our lunch. After lunch we headed north for about 30Km to visit Chateau Angincort, and the 17th century Chateau Sanzay. This is more of a ruin with not much more than the entrance still standing, although there were builders there, working to restore an old house back into a habitable property. It was very hot so we rode back to Courlay without wearing our jackets, just a leather waistcoat over a NABD T-shirt. In fact because it was so hot we rode most of our journeys dressed like this, something we would not do at home. On Wednesday we rode through the Vende Forest, the largest hard wood forest in Europe to Fontenay La Comte. The town starts at the top of a hill and the main street is about 2km long going down hill and out on to the plain, crossing the Vende Canal about half way down the hill. At the top of the town is the square, which also doubles as a car park, with a bandstand, and a monument to the revolution. The huge trees provide much needed shade, protecting people on the seats from the heat of the day. The area around the town is supposed to be one the places where the revolution started, and is now famous as a garrison town. We headed east out of the town and back to Courlay via the other large forest in the area at Secondigny. Once back at the guesthouse it was into the pool and then prepare for another four course feast. Next morning Thursday it was a little overcast although still very hot, we rode to Partheny about 40Km away. Again it is like a lot of French towns in respect that it has a town square that doubled as a car park, there is a bandstand, a monument, a large church and an old quarter dating back to the 16th century. Partheny differed slightly in that one side of the square was covered in hard gravel on which during the afternoon the men were playing pentauque. Friday dawned bright and hot. Today we planned to visit a couple of chateau's, we rode via Bressuire and Thours to Montreuil-Bellay. It is useful to remember that in France things come to a halt and places close between 12.00 and about 14.30 for lunch. So if you arrive after about 11.00 at chateau's etc., they probably will not let you in, as they'll be closing at 12.00. This happened to us here, it was about 11.30 when we arrived, so we had a look around the outside of the chateau, then crossed the square to a cafe for some lunch. After lunch we rode on to Brece and the chateau there. The chateau has had chequered history being a family home, the home of famous French cardinal, to more recently during World War 2, when it was a French military hospital, a German military hospital and lastly a command post for the Allied Forces before returning to a family home. On a day when it was 38C it was very pleasant to go on the tour of the Chateau's underground vaults and caverns where it was about 16C. These areas were dug out of the rock for the residents of the chateau, all their staff and families etc, to hide and live in, if the chateau came under attack. This used as the winery now and holds about 50,000 litres. As I was riding not a drop passed my lips until I got back to the guesthouse! All of the chateaus are old buildings with staircases unfortunately, as with old buildings here in the UK these are not very wheelchair friendly. Although a lot of the modern buildings seem to far more accessible to disabled users than here at home. I will not bore you further with a blow by blow daily account of each place we visited but list a few of the places and try to give a brief flavour of the place. One day we visited Chinon this is the town that is twinned with Tiverton where we live. It's a pretty town sitting on the north bank of a wide river that empties into the River Lour. A Chateau overlooks the town, which appears to have many squares set just back from the riverbank. Another day we went for a ride on a preserved steam railway, La Chemme de Firme du La Vendee at Mortagne-Sur Sievre. There is a very limited service. Four 4 wheeled coaches are pulled by an elderly 0-6-0 tank locomotive, which has to fight its way along the overgrown track, through the undergrowth lining the route and with walkers using the bridges for the whole of its torturous 22km to Les Herbiers and back. It is also unique in the fact that it only runs at 15.30 on Sundays from June to August. So if you miss it, the next service will be along again in a week! We also spent an afternoon visiting the regional city of Noirt, this unlike many cities I've visited did impress me, it was clean, well presented but in the end it was still a city full of traffic and bustle. Unfortunately, it was the only place in France where we felt intimidated. On our return to the large car park in the town square, a group of about 7 or 8 beggars had made each of the booths containing the pay machines their own territory, and were very aggressively begging, as people were trying to put the money in the machines. Not a place to hang around or wave your wallet about. As with all holidays all to soon that day comes when the trike has to be loaded, goodbyes said and the journey home started. We left Courlay at about 09.00 rode to Bressuire to fill with petrol and then headed north at a leisurely 80 to 90Kmh to Anger, where we crossed the River Lour. This is the only time we felt lost and turned off the ring road, only to find a sign for Laval on the opposite side of the road, directing us back on to the ring road. We left Anger and continued north to Laval and on to Mayenne where we stopped for lunch and refilled the petrol tank. We had to be back to Cherbourg by 18.00 to book in for the ferry, this allowed us plenty of time to continue on at the same leisurely pace passing through Domfront, Flers, Vire and St Lo and allowing us to take a coffee break during the afternoon. As we approached Cherbourg down the steep hill to the west of the town, we saw a filling station and topped the petrol up (even here it was only 0.99 E/Ltr). We arrived at the ferry port at 17.35, booked in and were directed to the holding area to wait. First job here was zip the linings back into our bike jackets as it would be colder when we got off the ferry in Poole 4 hours later. Again we were loaded on the car deck next to the lifts aboard the MV Barfluer. We watched Cherbourg and France gradually disappear and vowed we would be back. We used the time on the ferry crossing to sit our bums on different seats, catch up on an hours sleep and have a meal, before we went out deck to watch the lights of Swanage and Poole getting ever closer. It was a lovely clear summer night, which allowed us to watch the sun sinking over south Dorset and then it was back to the car deck. We rode off the ferry and in to the immigration area, where the passports were checked and then on to customs where we were waved through. We were back out on the roads of Poole by 10.25 pm., and then it was back to the A35 for Dorchester, Bridport, Honiton and home. We stopped in Bridport for a quick cup of coffee and to put on a pair of windproof over trousers, as it was colder than we expected. We eventually pulled up outside our home at 1.00 am BST Saturday morning, having been travelling since 09.00 Central European Time on Friday, in total about 16 hours. We'd rode 2400km (1500miles) on our trike during our holiday. Would we do it again? The simple answer is YES, I hope I haven't bored you with this account of our holiday but I hope it may have inspired you to grasp the nettle and do the same. If you want any more information or details on the place we stayed at, give me a call (but please not after 9.00 pm), Ride safe |
