Yesterday we were both due to return to the wine festival to use our remaining wine sampling allocations. Unfortunately Sue had a nasty stomach bug overnight and decided to rest up and recover. So off I went with the challenging task of using up two lots of allocations (i.e. another 12 wines to taste!).At the end I even attended a short ‘unusual pairings’ session at the wine school stand – it was all in French but the wine and food were excellent!

Today we drove east into the Dordogne and stopped at an aire in Périgueux, the district’s capital. It’s a delightful town, full of narrow cobbled streets and very attractive old buildings. Note their solution below to a lack of building space – balance your house on a wall! After walking around the area surrounding the Cathédrale St-Front which dates back to the 13th century we are going back tomorrow to check out the Roman remains (and maybe a nice restaurant).

Today we took the tram back into the city to visit La Cité du Vin – a temple to, and a celebration of, everything related to wine. The building even looks like a ultra modern cathedral:

Inside, every modern technology you can think of is used to communicate everything you could possibly want to know about the liquid the French regard so highly. It’s all done in a very entertaining way that keeps your attention for the 2 – 3 hours of your visit. Their wine shop (I should say Cave) looks impressive as does the view from the top floor.

After we walked through the very busy main shopping street, Rue Sainte Catherine, to the ‘proper’ Cathedral St-André which looked quite spectacular in the late afternoon sun.

Yesterday, after a visit to the supermarket, we headed south from Saintes to a campsite on the north side of Bordeaux – Le Village du Lac. We are staying here for four nights to visit the biannual Wine Festival which this year takes place at the same time as the end of the Tall Ships race from Liverpool to Bordeaux via Dublin.

The weather has been very mixed to say the least but it was looking brighter at lunchtime today so we caught the tram into the city and exchanged our tickets for a wine glass, a natty wine glass carrier and a card allowing us to sample 12 different wines (it’s a tough job…).  There are stalls set out along about 2 km. of the river front, each offering wines from different areas around Bordeaux.  You should only get a 5 cl measure per sample but some of the staff were a little more generous. We started at one end but only made it halfway along by the end of the day – we’ll be back for the rest later!

Tied up alongside the same section of the riverside were at least a dozen of the Tall Ships – including some very impressive ones from Russia, Spain, France, the UK and India. Many of them were allowing you on board for a tour. Overall a very spectacular sight!

After a leisurely start we walked into Saintes town centre to see the sights in this very historical town. First stop was the Abbaye aux Dames, a women’s monastery now being used for a music school and an unusual hotel. There was an exhibition of opera costumes as well..

We walked past the Arch of Germanicus built in Roman times (18AD) and then over the footbridge to Saint-Pierre Cathedral stopping en-route for a very tasty lunch.

This was followed by a walk across town to another impressive church – Saint-Eutrope Basilica. There are some famous Romanesque crypts under the building but they had been shut a few days earlier for renovation work🙁. Our last stop was at the Roman Amphitheatre, one of the best preserved in France.

We spent most of our second day driving south, through Alençon, around Le Mans and then down to Angers. We stopped at Camping d’Angers in Lac de Maine on the outskirts of the city. 

The following morning we caught a bus from outside the campsite into the city centre and paid a visit to the very impressive Angers Chateau – a huge fortress built in the 13th century to protect the city. The walls are almost half a kilometre long housing 17 towers each about 30 metres high. Inside the walls there is an impressive royal residence and chapel and the moat has been converted to some attractive formal gardens. The biggest draw in the Chateau however is the Apocalypse tapestry, commissioned in 1375 by Louis I, Duke of Anjou. It is 100 metres long and 6 metres high and tells the story of the Book of Revelations, the last text of the New Testament. In 1996 it was rehoused in a new gallery in the Chateau and we would certainly recommend a visit.

After a very pleasant lunch in a restaurant in the centre we took the bus back to the campsite, packed up the van and headed south to Saintes, stopping at the municipal campsite for 2 nights.

Off to France for a three week trip heading initially to Bordeaux for their wine festival (no surprise there!) and then heading roughly in the Dordogne direction – we’ll see how the weather turns out.

After a midday Eurotunnel crossing we’ve driven around to the west side of Rouen to a delightful Aire at La Mailleraye sur Seine.  We had seen good reviews online and we were not disappointed. The clue was in the name of the town – the Aire is right on the banks of the Seine and we have been watching plenty of commercial traffic on the river, presumably heading somewhere between La Havre and Paris.

Tomorrow the plan is to head for the west coast – maybe La Rochelle and Ile de Re.