FULL CIRCLE

Rain in the night and drizzly first thing but the sun is out when we get up, although it comes and goes with cloud.
All the vans were away early apart from the French one that was here when we arrived and the owner turns out to be English when he comes past walking his dog.
Ali walks down to the weir again and sees another coypu coming out from the bank and swimming around.

We enjoy the peace and quiet until after lunch then set off for home only 16 miles away.  All is well at the house but it is very windy.  To check if the leisure battery will charge properly we connect hook up and stay in the van for the night.
Our short fact finding trip has been really enjoyable and it's strange to think that in a week we've done less than 300 miles and never been more than about an hour and a half from home.

WEIR-D DAY

Despite healthy voltages when we turned in last night the leisure battery is well down again this morning, probably due to the cold.  Yesterday we were in clear space so the sun soon got onto the solar panel but this morning we are shaded by a row of high trees.  We wait until 09:30 then run the engine for 10-12 minutes and all is OK.
An hour later, while we are having breakfast, the kayakers arrive and start running the course but by the time Ali goes across with her camera they are finishing.
We want to go via St Savin which means going back through Angles-sur-l'Anglin although today we expect to see the usual 'Toutes Direction' [all routes] sign for a peripheral road, but no, it's back through the narrows like yesterday. Then we come to the chateau, glowing a warm sandstone colour in the sunshine, so we pull in for some photos. We also discover there is are dedicated moho parking spaces nearby.

The chateau is atop of some craggy rocks and what are signed as footpaths are rough steps hewn into the rock more suited to Sherpa evaluation trials than casual visitors.  Opposite the chateau is the sunny terrace of a restaurant, le Donjon du Bacchus, offering crepes and mulled wine on the blackboard of the day.  This is definitely somewhere to spend more time in warmer weather.
No doubt the couple, hatted and scarved, who power up the hill with the throaty sound of their Austin Healey 3000 roadster echoing off the stonework, would also like a warmer day.
We leave Angles-sur-L'Anglin, passing the weir at the bottom of the hill, and follow bouncy roads through soggy farmland with either rich, brown soil or vibrant green shoots of new crops all the way to St Savin, a town we visited a couple of years ago.  On that day we went inside the church and saw the amazing painted patterns on the columns and walls as well as the beautifully painted ceiling, but today we want to see the other side, the back of the abbey and the Roman bridge.

The abbey and church back onto a wide stretch of the river Gartempe the other side of which is a paddock where donkeys and sheep are grazing.  In today's sunshine we see the detailing of the buildings which was lost in the gloomy greyness of our previous visit.  Likewise, the Roman bridge shows up its detail with the pale stone arches reflecting in the water.
A short way from St Savin we stop in Antigny, another of the little timewarp villages so common in this region.
The village green, now surrounded by pollarded trees, was one the graveyard and in its centre is a lantern du mort or funeral chimney.

 Opposite the green, the little Romanesque church, according to the information board, has walls with paintings dated back to the 15th C and research indicates the existence of a people being on its site in the 1st C.  Sadly a notice on the church door says it is kept locked for security.  Behind the church the Gartempe thunders over another of its many weirs.

We continue towards Lussac-les-Chateaux along a badly deformed road more suited to Italy than France, but it is an attractive ride through the woods of the Bois de Borgogne.  Once in Lussac-les-Chateaux we find the aire in the busy central car park.  It would be fine for visiting the town but we fancy something more attractive for a night stop.  There is another place near the municipal campsite a mile away on the riverbank. We arrive and immediately double the number of vehicles in the car park, the only other one being a French moho.
Ali takes a recce along the path to the old bridge and yet another weir [we've lost count of weirs today].  Notices tell of strong resistance activity during 1943-44 and the ambush of a German convoy on the bridge with numerous casualties for both sides.
Before the sun sets behind the trees we are joined by five more mohos plus an ancient but tidy Kermit green Mercedes truck serving a young family on their travels.

COME INTO MY GARDEN

Quiet as could be all last night and a return to bright sunshine this morning.
The recent cold has meant lots of heating therefore high gas consumption.  The nearest LPG is at Chatellerault. 
We follow the scenic route towards Barrou.  In places catkins are hanging thickly on the trees and a few other trees have blossom of some sort plus huge clumps of Mistletoe in the trees, something we have seen loads of this week is enough to make your lips numb! 

Signs of an early spring, perhaps.
The scenery today has changed again, it's quite hilly and the fields are smaller areas, hedged or walled with scattered farmsteads and barns.  At Barrou we stop by the bridge to watch the river flowing over a small weir.

Chatellerault is an ugly sprawl as we approach but the LPG is at a huge Leclerc on the edge of town.  Being so big, the kiosk is not closed for lunch and we get our gas and diesel with no hold ups.  While we are here Ali goes in to get a torch as we left the usual one behindat the house.
We head back on another scenic route towards La Roche Posay and head to the camperstop coordinates to stop for lunch, but the 'picnic area' turns out to be a private car park for the hotel/restaurant with 'non-residents will be towed away' notices.  The other car park only allows motorhomes overnight.  It's a pity, we'd like to have seen some of this thermal town but will have to find another way another time.  We bounce along a poorly surfaced lane back to the main road and head for the next town, Yzeures-sur-Creuse, where a few squeezy streets between once grand but now flaking buildings lead us into a large, newly surfaced car park.  We have the choice of any of the eighty or so spaces, it's completely empty.
After sandwiches we set off for Vicq-sur-Gartemp, out through a couple more tiny streets into the main part of Yzeures-sur-Creuse, where the roads are much more suited to our width.
The mid afternoon sun is casting soft contrast light over the fields, sparkling off the river as we drive alongside and adding a gloss to the wet, dark brown, recently ploughed soil.
We enter Vicq-sur-Gartemp across a pretty stone bridge and find the camperstop. 
Ali takes a walk back to the town hoping to pick up a few leaflets so that we will know what to come back to another time.
She stops to photograph a grand art nouveau house and sees a woman working in the garden.  They get chatting and the woman invites Ali to look around the garden and apologises that she cannot see inside today.  The garden has a micro-climate and there are roses and jasmine in bloom plus palm trees.  She explains the house, called 'Villa des Iles' was built in 1908 by M.+Mme Guyard to a design by F Milord [born in Angles sur Anglin] who was the architect for Chatellerault.  Inside there are collections and decorations in art nouveau and art deco styles.

The woman gives Ali some pamphlets about the house and says there are occasions when the inside is open to the public.  The house, as its name suggests, is surrounded by water and tiny islands where Ali watches a beaver or coypu swimming in the confluence of waters.  Near the water is a tree with purple catkins.
The aire is not an unpleasant place but the service point has long been out of service.  Since we are only 8 miles from Tournon St Martin, where we know the services work, we decide that will suit us better.
On the way we drive through Angles-sur-Anglin with more very narrow streets, which probably look lovely in summer as it is an award winning ville fleurie or flower town.
We escape without meeting any traffic and drive past more small farms and reach Tournon just as the sun is turning hazy and watery.

We park along from another moho, the fifth we've seen today and more than we've seen all week.  Screens up, oven on, drinks poured and the sound of water over the weir across the road.
Funny to think we're only 4 or 5 miles from where we stayed on Tuesday.

THE IRON ROAD

Warmer this morning, plus 2C!  But as predicted there is thick, low cloud.

Thenay is on the edge of St Gaultier and our route today takes us right through the centre of the main town, partly through a pedestrian-priority zone.  Cobbled humps, rain gulleys and general undulations make it feel like a 4x4 test track even at walking speed until we come out into the main square. Ali spots a boulangerie with a parking space so we stop and eye up its window display.  Minutes later she comes out with baguette, mini-quiches for lunch, fruit tartlets for supper and croissants for tomorrow's breakfast.

Leaving St Gaultier we head north west, bisecting yesterday's route through the lakes, which today are dull and grey so we are glad we made the best of yesterday's sunshine.

From Mezieres-en-Brenne there are fewer lakes and woods with the landscape turning into rolling, pale green fields reminding us of the Somme region. We learn that the lakes were man made by the extraction of peat for charcoal, much like the lakes around Long in the Somme, plus some iron mining. Perhaps iron gave some lakes, like Mer Rouge we saw yesterday, a red tinge.

We stop in Azay-le-Feron for lunch and a quick peek at the outside of its 15th C chateau, which is closed until March.  Ali is holding her camera up to snatch a picture over the iron gate when a teacher, with a school party, asks if he can put a child on his shoulders to take the picture for her.  Offer declined.  

'le Feron', not surprisingly, indicates that the town was once a centre for the iron industry, with iron being extracted as late as the 19th C.  Azay is a derivation of aqua, perhaps from the lakes left after mining.

The map marks a scenic section from Preuilly-sur-Claise to Abilly and there is an aire at Le Grand Pressigny.  It's definitely a pretty route; more Somme-like rolling plains, a bit of woodland

and some attractive houses and farmsteads along the way.

Just before Le Grand Pressigny we drive below the imposing walls of the chateau.

The aire a large tarmac area outside the municipal campsite which is closed now, as is the service point, but a notice tells us we could get 1€ tokens from the marie if we wanted to use the campsite amenities block.

It's a peaceful spot and we spend the remaining part of the afternoon reading.

Later Ali wins a game of Rummikub.

NOT LAC-KING IN BEAUTY

Another sub zero night and when we poke our noses over the covers it's only 7C inside!  On with the heating. Jack Frost has been all over the windows making a mess like a Banksy at Iceland.

By the time we're up, warm, fed, looked through yesterday's photos, planned a route for today and have used the service point it is approaching midday.

The weather is forecast to be sunny so we plan to make use of the good light and zigzag around the lakes of the Brenne National Park.

From Benevant we follow a single track road across open grassland to Poulingy St Pierre then onto a lovely main road to Luriel before turning off to Linge, where the lakes start in earnest.

The first few are small or distant, some just managed fishing pools but then there are larger ones shimmering blue in the sunshine and surrounded by golden reed beds.  

We park in St Michel on Brenne next to a grand house with moat, before turning south towards Gabriere. 

Now there is water to be seen everywhere, more blue fringed with gold and surrounded by lush pasture which is grazed variously by white cattle, goats and heavy horses.  There are quite a few places selling cheese, mostly sheep or goat. The narrow roads are edged with deep drainage ditches but there is hardly any traffic to be concerned with.

We pull into the car park of a random 'etang'.  A man gets out of his car with a bazooka sized lens on his camera, suggesting some serious twitching is nigh, and sure enough just down the path is a timber hide  complete with a low viewing hatch reserved for wheelchairs. There are a few egrets and herons but it's too early for the full on bird reserve.

A few miles on we reach le Bouchet, a sturdy little time-warp of a farming village.  We stop for lunch looking over a typical sunken sheep fold scooped out among a few trees.   Nearby there are more heavy horses and birds include green woodpeckers, heron and a couple of eagles.

Around the corner is a chateau, not open to visitors until March.

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Just outside le Bouchet is etang de la mer rouge but it isn't a red sea today.  Never mind, today is all about recce-ing the area and mer rouge has walkways and observation posts designed for wheelchairs.

We leave the single track roads at Ronsay and head for Migne.  Along the way is a ring of massive radio masts ahead and as we get closer there are no stopping and no photography signs.  The Marines communications base is visible from the road, but the double perimeter fence with wide no-man's-land runways indicate that security is taken very seriously.

At Migne we stop near the sandstone, Romanesque church to find our nightstop.  There are three possibles: La Peroiulle, Luant or Neuillay-les-Bois. The last is noted as closed until March so we choose La Perouille which is near a lake.  We wind through the village and alon a single track road to find the entrance sealed with barrier tape. Luant then, a pleasant drive through pretty lakeland in lowering sun, but it too is chained off.  We could stay in the park car park but it's shaded by trees and close to the road. Looking in the books the irony is that Thenay - considered yesterday - is only 11 miles away so we head there. Out on the main road we see three or four aire signs for the two closed ones, which begs the question, if they can rig tape and anchor chain to block them off, couldn't they pop out and put bags over the signs?

In St Gualtier we cross the river which is turning mauve in the setting sun and are shortly afterwards parking at the dead end of a road - literally.  At least there shouldn't be any noise from the adjacent grave yard….

CREUSE-ING ALONG

Nestled in the bowl below the barrage means we wake up to minus 2C.  The heavy frost has coated the grass and trees and everything else with white, making the rocks below the barrage look like a frozen waterfall.

We're in no rush to move and it's 11:00 by the time the temperature has a 'plus' in front of the number and we set off.

The road climbs away from the river through thick woodland where, through the bare trees, we get a sighting of Chateau de Chateaubrun. 

A turn off the main road drops and climbs again to the little town of Gargilesse where we stop to look over the valley at the pale stone church.  A couple of houses have Spanish style enclosed balconies. Through narrow streets and down to a bridge, we cross the river Creuse and climb to the viewpoint at Boucle le Pin.  We know boucle means bend, especially when applied to rivers, but this boucle has a special feature: a noticeboard describes it as the join between two different geological areas, the Granite Gneiss and the Paris Basin.  Sure enough we can see the hard rocky outcrops of granite on one side of the valley and the sheared yellow ochre faces on the other.

It's a beautiful, sunny drive through more forest and in places alongside the Creuse before we reach Perchereaud and detour into Carrefour for a few supplies.  Driving through the town there are some grand houses backing onto the river, some with crazy-paving patterned stone walls and brick detail, others styled like mini chateaux.

Perchereaud merges seamlessly into Argenton-sur-Creuse where we pull in beside the river for lunch.  The water looks, at first, quite smooth but is is flowing quite quickly and there are a few eddies and tiny whirlpools from the undertow.  Occasionally the water is disturbed by fish breaking the surface to catch flies.

Our planned stop at Thenay is only six miles away and because it is still sunny and a bit early to stop we find another aire listed at Ouilches.  We follow the main road towards Le Blanc then turn off cross country to Ouiches. We are out of the woods now on a small road with open fields all around and sunshine beating through the windows.  

We reach Ouilches, an attractive little village with a simple stone church and stone houses with charcoal coloured woodwork.  Some houses have balconies like little wicket gates on upstairs windows. Best laid plans etc…. The aire is being resurfaced, barriers, workmen, trucks and tarmac spreaders are using up the marie's latest lump of funding. 

Plan C:  Not far from Le Blanc we know of two nice aires, Tournon St Martin we have used two or three times, and Fontembault which we have passed but not stayed at.

The road from Le Blanc is familiar, running alongside a jagged rock face on the right and the flood plain on our left.  We reach Fontembault and park in the empty aire looking across 100m of green grass to the river.

Nearby is a boulangerie with a constant two or three customers' cars in the parking area at a time.  Must be good so Ali wanders across and comes with a few treats, including some buns called 'Paris Brests'. Ali wonders at the name.  Nick says it comes either from a mis-spelled act at the Follies Bergeres or perhaps they were a speciality on a notable train running between those places.  Ali favours the train idea because there were toy trains next to the till.

We later find it was created a representation of a wheel requested by Pierre Giffard for the 1910 Paris-Brest-Paris cycle race.  The choux pastry with praline cream filling became a favourite with cyclists because of its high calorific value. Tastier for cyclists than ketamine or corticosteriod too!

Once the sun goes down it cools rapidly again and it just 4C by the time Ali dishes up our dinner of baked dorade on a bed of fennel, tomato, onion and pepper. Rations can be sparse on the road…

Never mind, Paris Brest for dessert.

DAM GOOD STOP

MON 20 JAN 2020       

We have been wanting to get away for over a week and finally this afternoon we do.  The transfers from the house are done; food, clothes etc and we set off after lunch in bright sun but only 5c.

The recent winds have completely stripped every leaf from every tree now and the bark is showing brightly against fresh green grass and a blue sky with little puff ball clouds.

Towards Lussac les Eglises there are lots of sheep and it's a joy to be out on the road again, even though we don;t plan on going a huge distance.  The nearby countryside is so lovely we just want a few days exploring our own area.

We approach St Benoit du Sault with its pale brown buildings appearing stacked as they follow the rise of the hill,  The road climbs and turns among them levelling at the top of the town where we were told there was a nice aire. Perhaps it has changed because what we find is one sloping, car-sized space beside a service point in a busy car park.  'twould do, as they say, but not the peace and solitude we wanted so we get out he books and find somewhere better. We find three possibilities, all close together, near Cuzion.

It's a pretty continuation along a road marked a a scenic route ending in a steep descent with hairpins and along the river Creuse to the barrage d'Eguzon.  The aire is a tree lined space on the river's edge where it resumes its flow after powering electricity turbines in the adjacent EDF facility. The barrage, or dam, beside the power station holds back the water of lac Eguzon, which we might take a look at tomorrow.

But as the sun disappears behind the trees we're glad we moved as there is only the trickling of the river and the faintest hum of the power plant to be heard.