Through the Limousin into the Vendée region

Tuesday 12 September 2023

Nido's parked up in the village of La Pommeraie-sur-Sevre in the Vendee region.  It's a lovely little village that's provided a free aire with free services. There's not much in the village; a hotel (not sure if it's still open, the obligatory huge church and marie's office and a baguette vending machine. The signposts here show how the village children helped put up the aire signs and plant a lovely herb garden.  The feeling of community is strong; it's now nearly 8pm and on the green next to the aire there seems to have been an after-school club going for the past four hours.  The children are aged from about 4 years old up to 10.  They seem to have a great time, with sports, treasure hunt and games to music.  They (and the adults) must be absolutely exhausted!  But it's been lovely to listen to the laughter.  After some earlier rain, it's a bit cloudy now but still plenty warm enough to sit outside in shorts and t-shirts.

Yesterday we left the lakeside where we'd spent the past six nights and hit the road again.  First stop was in Montmorillon, to top up with food at Le Clerc and fill up the van with diesel and LPG.  Although promising cooling temperatures, it was a hot journey and we spent most of it with the cabin air con cooling us down.  Our route took us through Poitiers but thankfully the satnav did its job and popped us out the other end back on to the quieter roads.

Our park up last night was in the town of Nieuil L'Espoir in the Limousin region.  It was another free aire and quite busy when we arrived, but still with plenty of room to park up.  After lunch we took a walk around the lakes, where Salty had a cooling dip, although he might not have been so keen had he seen the coypu swimming in the middle!  We carried on a circular route past some large sunflowers before returning to the van for apero hour, followed later by a cup of tea with some patissierie.  I did a circuit of the town centre with Salty later; nothing was open.  It was stifling hot and humid late into the night and none of us slept well in the heat of the van.  A thunderstorm and rain arrived in the early hours, which cooled things a little, but we were still a bit bleary eyed this morning when I walked Salty, then wandered along to the boulangerie to buy a couple of baguettes.

We arrived at La Pommeraie-sur-Sevre at about 1pm, so had a late lunch before following a well marked 6km circular walk that took us into the village and the surrounding countryside.  We walked past the old mill of l'Audriere, including the old castle, to which someone had innovatively attached a barn.

Salty finally gets a cooling dip in a stream

Having had a good lunch, we only fancied a cup of tea and (yes) some pattiserie for supper.  As I finish this off, the children are running around on the green playing some form of chase game.  The adults seem to have lost control and look absolutely shattered...I'm wondering if I should go over and offer them an apero! 

Busy doing nothing

Sunday 10 September 2023

Nido's still parked up at the side of Lac de Vassivière.  We'll have been here six nights by the time we leave, longer than we've stayed anywhere for a continuous period.  All of it has been on a simple grass area, although we did move to a different spot yesterday to have a better view of the lake and to be a bit closer to 'our' swimming beach.  On and off there have been about 8 other vans here with us, although it's been very quiet with everyone just chilling out.

It's been the ideal place during what's been an extended heatwave, not just in France but throughout the UK too.  Here, it's been about 35'C every day, but at least with the occasional breeze.  So our days have consisted of waking up, cup of tea, walk the dog, chill, swim, lunch, chill, swim, dinner, chill, watch the sunset, sleep.  It's been very restful.

On Thursday I cycled around the lake, which is almost 24km.  The route is known as the Circuit Raymond Poulidor, the famous (late) Tour de France cyclist, who lived nearby; two of his grandsons - David and Mathieu van der Poel  are also a professional cyclists.  I also realised, due to the road graffiti, that the road running to the south of the lake - right next to where we're camped - was also a part of Stage 9 of this year's Tour de France, so I've managed to cycle a bit more of that too!  Stage 9 started in the Raymond Poulidor's hometown of Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat.

On a couple of occasions I drove (leaving Cathy sat on our spot with the chairs) to the nearby village of Royère-de-Vassivière to service the van on the aire, recycle rubbish and top up with food at the small supermarket right next to the aire.  This has allowed us this extended six night stop.  The solar panel has kept our leisure battery topped up.  A few days ago I had a problem with the EcoFlow River 2 Max powerbank not charging on 12V DC. It's fine charging on 230V AC, but we need to be hooked up for that.  This is annoying as I bought the EcoFlow specifically for this trip and to spend more time off-grid.  After a bit of to-ing and fro-ing, I eventually got hold of someone in EcoFlow UK and they've agreed to provide a brand new replacement unit when we return home.

The heatwave is due to break tomorrow and cool down by several degrees, which will be welcome.  Obviously with that will come the westerly fronts bringing wind and rain.  We've enjoyed the hot weather, are thankful for trees to shade us and water to cool us, but now we're happy to take what ever weather comes our way and hit the road again.

So tomorrow we'll move on, heading north of Limoges to a supermarket to buy food, brim up the LPG tanks and service the van, then on a bit further north west.  The outline plan is to take a couple of days to make our way into southern Brittany, then see where we end up from there.  It's 3pm now, the sun will soon be sneaking around the awning, so time for a swim!

Canicule

Tuesday 5 September 2023

Nido's parked up on a free aire on a large grass field, in the shade of huge oak trees and about 20m from the water's edge at Lac de Vassivière in the Limousin region.  There's about seven other vans here, but it's very quiet, no artificial lights around and the owls are hooting all around us.  I can just about see the reflection of the lake in the fading light.

Given the current canicule (heatwave) here in France, we made the decision to head for the coast to try and get some respite.  We're a bit sad, as the whole Auvergne region is beautiful and we wanted to see a lot more.  We had plans for more walks and visits to some of the fortified towns and villages.  Plus we wanted to take the train up the Puy de Dôme.  But temperatures at the moment are exceptionally high and are due to stay that way for several more days.  Issoire - where we spent yesterday morning doing the laundry - was the second hottest place in France yesterday at 38'C.  Whilst the coastal areas aren't forecast to be too much cooler, we should benefit from some sea breeze and also the opportunity to cool off in the ocean.  But living in a metal box on wheels can be very challenging in this heat; not only does it affect us (and, I hate to say it, but it gets harder to regulate body temperature as we get older!) but Salty suffers too.  So it's the right decision.

We were up at 0700 yesterday morning and set off from Aydat for Issoire.  It was an admin day so laundry needed to be done and there was an outdoor laundry machine outside a Carrefour supermarket in town.  Also, there was free van servicing just across the road.  We arrived at about 0800 and luckily both washing machines were available.  We had a bit of a payment issue as neither of our payment cards were accepted, so we had to use notes and coins instead.  We thought it might be our UK cards, but a local lady came along later and had the same problem.  We explained the issue and showed her how to use Euro notes.  She only had a €20 note, but I had two tens, so did a swap with her, as no change is given.  So we did our good deed for the day!  I also popped into the supermarket to do the shopping and after an hour of using the dryer, we moved across the road to service the van, followed by a diesel fill up.

These outdoor launderettes are all over France and are now appearing in the UK too

Breakfast in a supermarket car park whilst doing the laundry - living the dream!

The original plan was to stay at a free aire in the small village of Tourzel Ronzières, high up with amazing views over the countryside.  It was a bit of strange set up as the aire parking areas were on several narrow terraces, only wide enough to drive on.  This meant that if you parked in the middle and other vans came later in front and behind you, there was no way of getting out.  But we found a flattish area of grass in a separate space and started to set up.  It quickly became obvious that it would be too hot to stay there; the shady spots had already been taken and there was a lot of shooting in the valley, which completely freaked Salty out.  So I took another look and found the Camping Car Park site in Auzon, about 45 minutes' drive away.  The reviews said there was plenty of shade and a river, plus the hill-top fortified village looked lovely, with the campsite in the valley below.

A lovely position but WAY too hot

We found a shaded spot and did our best to keep cool.  I took a quick walk and found the river was dried up.  Once the sun had dipped behind the trees we walked along a narrow road, past stone cottages, before it turned into a path running alongside the (dry) river bed.  It was a good deal cooler amongst the trees and thankfully, in a couple of places, there was enough water to allow Salty to dunk up to his neck - we were very jealous.  I cooked outside and we sat well into darkness, enjoying the cooling temperature and looking up at the stars.

This morning we enjoyed the cool, walking the dog and eating breakfast outside, before packing up and starting our journey west.  Ideally we only make short daily hops to relax and explore an area, but today was about making some miles towards the coast.  I hope one day we'll be able to return to the Auvergne and continue to explore this wonderful region.  I stopped off at an 'artisan' boulangerie on the way for a baguette for lunch.  Many boulangeries are described as 'artisan' but this one had a wood burning oven and it showed.  Alongside the traditional baguette, they made regional loaves of bread, all with the dark, crunchy crust and light, fluffy filling with lots of holes from extended proving.  It proved to be delicious as we enjoyed it at one of the many welcome picnic sites found along the roadside.

We arrived at Lac de Vassivière in the heat of the mid-afternoon.  I admit to being quite tired and hot when we arrived, so after we'd walked the dog - and he'd had his daily dip - we took him back to the van, changed and walked the short distance to the water's edge.  The long awaited swim was divine!  The water was warm with the occasional chilly patch.  We swam around for a while, washing off the heat and dust of the past few hot days (although he had showered in the van each day of course!).  The rest of the day was spent relaxing, reading and looking out over the lake as the sun set.  Dinner was a vegetable stir fry with some boiled rice.  We're using up food odds and sods; tomorrow will be some form of hotdog, onion and feta calzone made with wheat wraps in the Ridge Monkey, with a salad - don't judge us!

As it's cooler here (30'C in the daytime) we'll stay here another night to walk around part of the lake and take another dip or two, before heading further west.