Lazing in
the sun last night we decided that we needed to get the most bang for our buck,
so today we are off to Chauvigny –
apparently overlooked by five, yes five, Castles or Chateaux or Forts or
magnificent things of some description that we can’t quite pin down, we feel
that we can’t go wrong. Chauvigny actually does live up to expectations
historically speaking.
Allocated motorhome parking is not so bad, if a bit
unlikely, but town centre is just there and so are the forts (they turned out
to be forts in the end). The history of
the place is quite special - it is the
only example of its kind in the whole of Europe in that five forts are all
housed within one all-encompassing wall. Bear in mind these were all built or
rather finished in the 12th Century it’s amazing that anything
survives at all. This is the worst of it….
But the
other buildings have been preserved either in their original form or turned
into museums. The 11th-12th Century Church is still
amazing. How did they build such wonders so high up???
Lovely as
the history is we have other destinations today so after a super zoom espresso
we head off towards Montmorillon for lunch. The weather is still favouring us
and lunch on the river sounds pretty good. Now….. a word of warning for the
faint hearted. AIRE BEWARE! The aire in
Montmorillon has a somewhat hair raising entrance. Don’t be shy, just stop the
camper, hold up the traffic, get out and have a good luck before attempting.
Jon made the turn with grace and aplomb, but he’s a driving God. And our van
isn’t monster sized. Just look, mkay?
We make it
in, picture post card view again, sunshine, little beach for fishing on should
you want to. Lunch heaven basically.
Spot the pooches and the ducklings J
Lunch over
we decide to head off. While the view is perfect it’s not quite the solitude
we’re after. Off we zoom to Bellac. A small aire on the banks of the river,
only three spaces, nice and quiet and on the edge of a park and the bottom of
some more ruins. Sounds ideal. We get there and it’s everything it promised to
be. Except there are goats next to the aire. Cue Norm barking like mad. Sigh.
We move round the corner, STOP VALERIE there’s a bar! There’s also a pretty
little Roman bridge and all is serene. We take Norman Pet and Moo for a walk up
to the ruins, the sun continues to beat down… marv.
Upon return
to Valerie there are youfs hanging about, the bar is closed, the sun has
vanished behind the ruins and someone is chainsawing the tree next to us. We
exchange glances. Time to zoom. We hadn’t planned to travel so far today, but
peace and quiet is the order of the day so we decide to make one last final
jump to Lac De Vessiviere. This kills two birds with one stone. We will be
holed up in advance of what might be a Good Friday rush and we will be
guaranteed peace and solitude and hopefully some decent fishing. It’s a long a
tricky zoom, Jon and Valerie do a fab job on bone shaking hairpin roads in the
gloaming. We arrive early evening and instantly paradise is found.
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