A holiday away from the Charente - Part One.

We have never been to the United States before and at the invitation of a number of friends who have moved there over the years, we decided to do some visiting!  We have long time friends from both South Africa and Rhodesia scattered around, so there was much to catch up on and see.  One of the very top opportunities was to spend a few days at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and meet up with Gaelyn from  http://geogypsytraveler.com/; we have been following each other's blogs almost since the day I started blogging.

This post only covers day one and two of a 4 week trip, so I hope you have the stamina for all there is to see and follow!! I still have many photos to look through, edit and check, so this is all going to take sometime!

9 June 2016

One of our friendly French neighbours took us and our luggage to the railway station in Angouleme to catch the TGV (high speed train) to Paris. There he is, wheeling a case!  However, the trip was in doubt until the last minute due to French union strike action. When we had booked all the travel 6 months previously, that wasn't on the radar!!  To cut a long story short, Nigel went to our local station 3 times to check if our train to Paris would run!  Each time he were told yes, and then the day before we travelled, we had an email to say it had been cancelled!!  After another trip to the station,we finally managed to rebook, but all trains were almost full due to cancellations and our seats were upstairs, up which we had to drag 3 cases, plus hand luggage and cameras!

Leaving Angouleme, I could not fail to remind you that it is the city of the  comic strip and a haven for graphic artists; these are a few of the paintings around the railway station.

There appeared to be a Bar - Brasserie behind these doors, but it all looked pretty quiet while we were there - well, it was half past seven in the morning!

10 June 2016

By the time we had arrived in Paris, with arms full of luggage and located and caught the shuttle bus to our hotel, the time flew, so the only photos I managed was this one from the hotel window, looking out at the sunrise the following day, and those below.

There were signs everywhere that the UEFA Euro 2016 Football (soccer) Championship was on in France and  hotels everywhere were packed with soccer fans!

Waiting at the hotel the next morning for the shuttle bus to take us just up the road to........

 Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport.

These are Air France 'planes, but their aircrews had been on strike intermittently for many weeks, creating enormous disruption. Strikes are still going on as I type this! Luckily we were flying with American Airlines!

Our first morning, with a sunrise, in Delaware, after landing at the nearby Philadelphia airport  the evening before.  We were very tired, as it had been a long two days travel from home, especially with the 5 hour time change!

Also see my daily diary HERE

and My Life Before Charente (updated 09 April 2016) 

Circuit Des Remparts 2015 - Angouleme- Day 3 The races!

The Friday car elegance show and the Saturday rally  were a quieter prelude to the Sunday RACES! The city's organisation must have worked 24/7!;  clearing out all the parked cars, "corralling" all the residents into their flats and closing the roads forming the inner city road racing circuit. By the time we arrived at 08h00 on the Sunday morning, everything was set up and running smoothly - the pits, metal fencing and barriers, grandstands, food stalls, toilets, marshals, commentators, ambulances, breakdown crews, the lot! It all seemed to me to be much like a miniature version of the Monaco GP! They have been running this event EVERY year since 1939, interrupted only by WW2, so they should know what they are doing! Famous names like Fangio, Ferrari and Gordini made some of their first appearances here, on this short 1.3 kilometre (0.8 mile) circuit.

Angouleme - a bird's eye view of part of the circuit, showing the steep inclines and curves to be negotiated by the competitors.The cathedral spire is top left.

A Bugatti type 35 (I think!!) getting familiar with the roads during the morning practice runs.

More Bugattis - some drivers removed their headlamps, or never had them!

A Bugatti type 37 from 1929. Could be worth €400,000 and he's racing it around the streets!

Mini Cooper S, ideally suited to this short, narrow, winding circuit.

Alfa Romeo, I'm guessing it's the valuable 2300cc model 8C from the early 1930's, being scooped up after a mechanical malfunction.

An Allard K2 roadster from 1951 - very rare (only 120 made), beautifully prepared and powered by an American V8 engine. Sidney Allard was an English motor engineer who designed and built racing cars in that era.

Here it is again, in the races, catching up with an Alfa Romeo Guilia saloon, a Golf and a Renault 5 Turbo. It has huge power in a straight line, but is not as nimble around the twisty bits as the smaller cars! It was raced with gusto, and the crowd loudly applauded the driver's enthusiasm!

A 1970's Porsche 914-6 chasing a 1950's Jaguar XK120 past the Cathedral public grandstand

 Citroen MEP from the early 1970's. M.E.P are the initials of a Citroen franchise holder who designed the car for racing, in response to the French public's enthusiasm for single-seaters. It uses an 1100cc Citroen engine.

The same car driven in anger to win its class. The safety fencing wasn't conducive to taking clear photos!

Breathe in... small 848cc two stroke Panhard Sports  and a huge 1954 16 feet long Studebaker Champion lean on either side of a poor little Austin A35 at the back of the field. You can see the Allard again, up ahead in the distance.

1953 Panhard Fairchild Special, pirouetting gracefully on three wheels, before.....

having a confrontation with someone's garden wall!! This was a photo of the big viewing screen opposite our stand, hence the blurring.

1965 Porsche 911 smoking its rear tyres in an effort to escape a Ford RS1600 and another 911. The Ford retired, leaving the white car to a comfortable race win.

A  French registered and immaculate Jaguar SS100 seemingly "just parked" for people to admire.

An extremely rare Jowett Jupiter from the 1950's, and all the way from England!

An afternoon of 10 races made up the packed and very entertaining programme, each race being of 20 laps or about 25 minutes. The fastest lap of the day was made at an average speed of 80 kph (50mph), which doesn't sound very fast, but the circuit is very restricted, as you can see, and there is also the matter of lapping slower cars, so I think a bit of bravery is needed to achieve such times. As in the previous events, the organisers had to be thankful for support from  UK entrants to achieve respectable numbers. All in all, a great weekend's experience and we counted our blessings with Sunday's very warm sunny September weather!

Thanks again to Nigel for all his research and the write up.  I might recognise a few models but not many!

See also my daily Photo Diary Here

My Life Before Charente   - New post 24/10/2015

Circuit Des Remparts 2015 - Angouleme - Days one and two

This post, and the next, will chiefly appeal to classic car fans, but due to its longevity, this motor sporting event  is such a fundamental and important part of the year for the city and its people (they are named the Angoumois), I hope that every reader, car fan or not, will find something of interest in it! Below is this year's poster for the event, which has been held every year since 1939, interrupted only by World War II. That's quite a record!

Signs like this below are erected on every major road entering the city. They set out brief details of the activities, held over a long September weekend from Friday to Sunday. The events  comprise a Concours D'Elegance on the Friday evening, a (fairly gentle) rally on Saturday (because most of the cars are old and/or valuable!), with the grand finale on Sunday being flat-out racing around a street circuit in the old town - all closed to normal traffic, of course! Participants often come from far away in their enthusiasm to participate in one or other of the above; many are French but a large contingent comes from the UK, as you will see. Without them, I felt that the event would be much smaller and much the poorer!

A beautiful 1939 Alvis 4.3 litre drophead coupe below, driven all the way from England by a mature gentleman and his wife! This car won the open-top class in the Concours, a competition in which cars (and some motorbikes), divided into classes, are judged by a panel, for their condition, style and the way in which the driver and passengers are attired to match the looks and age of the car! The contest here is all fairly light-hearted, but the long and unseasonably cold and rainy evening must have tested the patience of the entrants!

 The Alvis was snapped in daylight, on its way to the evening event, but I found it very difficult to take shots of many of the entries on the judging ramp due to the artificial lighting set-up and the intermittent rain squalls, so I only have two other class winners worth showing! The car below is a Porsche 356C from the mid '60s, cleverly  decked out in a winter sports mode. The engaging boy (on the right) throwing fake snowballs at the crowd must have added a few points to the car's score!

A host of vintage motorbikes below, mostly French, with the class winner being a teenager who had rebuilt his vintage bike himself!

After a late night with the Concours, the car rally started early on Saturday morning, following a 180km (115 mile) route around the local countryside, taking in sunflower fields and the extensive estates growing grapes for wine and Cognac (that famous town is not very far away). There was an official entry of some 300 cars, of which only 200 were in the programme, so that made identification difficult for us! The lunch  break was in Jarnac, a small town SW of Angouleme, so we headed there to get some shots of the competitors as they drove in from their morning's challenges. The whole town came to a standstill and streets were gridlocked as many locals arrived to show off their own oldies. The gendarmes battled valiantly to keep the traffic moving!

Of the hundreds of cars milling around, here are a few which caught my eye, illustrating the wide spectrum of motor transport developed in the middle years of the 20th century. The unusual car below is a Citroen-based Lomax from the '70s. Not so good to look at as the much earlier English Morgan 3-wheeler, I reckon! Still, the owner is obviously proud of it!

A stunning, rare and  valuable Bugatti type 35B below; more of a racing car, really, so the owner was very courageous in undertaking the rally day, just ambling along country roads for hours! These cars were produced in the mid to late 1920s and powered by 2.3 litre straight eight engines producing up to 130 horsepower. You'll need to find around £500,000 ($US750,000) for some examples, but this one would be out again the following day for the races around the town!

Now a 1965 Aston Martin DB5 from England; the same model was used in the James Bond films and that is worth £1,000,000 ($US 1,520,000). Whew!!

Below a 1920/30s Bentley sports, again , all the way from the UK, but not being an aficionado of the marque, I'm not sure exactly what it is!

Chenard Walcker, a rare French make, was manufactured in the '20s and some cars were built for racing. Indeed, there is an example in the Le Mans motor museum. Cars were built into the '30s, in association with the better known Delahaye brand, but after that the factory apparently closed down. This is French owned, as is the Citroen further below from the same era.

What looks below like a American Willys Jeep, seemingly converted for use by the French police. It didn't have any rally number plates on it, so maybe it was being driven around by some locals just displaying their pride and joy!

A Jaguar XK120 roadster, the first of their beautiful post-war XK series cars. The body styling caused a sensation when the car was introduced in 1948. Another car which came all the way from the UK.

This next one, again from the UK, possibly an MG M type "Midget" from the 1930s, fitted with a supercharger to improve performance. It  only had drum brakes to help the driver make it stop!

Below a local Peugeot 301 saloon, of which 70,000 were produced between 1932 and 1936. Its 1500cc engine helped it achieve 80 mph and it was one of the first cars to be designed with independent front suspension.

And last but not least, a well-restored Porsche 356 cabriolet from the mid 1960s. I seem to remember this particular car came from Holland, so quite a long drive in a 60 horsepower, 50 year old car! Don't miss the forthcoming part 2, the exciting race day!

Thanks Nigel for your research and help again.

See also my daily Photo Diary Here

My Life Before Charente   - New post 13/08/2015

Will catch up with the latter soon!!

The Charente International Rally at Angouleme.

The "Circuit des Remparts" is a day of classic car races held around the old town streets in Angouleme on a Sunday in late September, as part of an annual three day event celebrating the automobile. Cars come from the UK and other European countries as well as France.

It is preceded by a ‘Concours d’Elegance’ (classic cars shown and judged for their condition) on the Friday night, followed on  Saturday by the Charente International Rally. The exact rally route is only released a couple of days before the event, but generally consists of two loops, morning and afternoon, around the beautiful surrounding countryside, stopping for lunch this year at the chateau at Chalais, south of Angouleme, before making their way back to the town in late afternoon. We went to watch them returning to the Champ de Mars, a large central square in the town centre. We had thought about going to the Sunday races, but as we were leaving for Paris on Monday morning (more photos to follow), we decided against it!  Sorry, more photos than my usual posts, but I did not want to split this up.

The finish ramp in the Champ de Mars, waiting for the cars to arrive, and before the crowds got there!

Angouleme wall paintings

and more;  There are many cartoons and trompe l'oeil painted on blank walls around the city, which enliven the environment. Angouleme has become the centre of the comic strip industry since the early 70's, when a group of enthusiasts held an exhibition celebrating the "bande dessinee", as comic strips are named here. The town has no connection with the art at all, except that once it was renowned for the production of paper! The exhibition, held every year, became bigger and bigger and it continues to flourish.

A view of city spires and townscape, while waiting for the cars to arrive.

 Alpine Renault, probably from the late 60's - one of many in the event.

Alvis - a fine British coach-built car,  once made in Coventry. This one from the 60's. Car production ceased in 1967, but attempts have recently been made to revive the marque.

A Bentley, a Continental probably....

and the unmistakable swooping back!

Peugeot 402 Special Sport Roadster, one of only 53 built in 1938. If genuine, it's worth hundreds of thousands of Euro!!!....

with another uniquely shaped back.

No rally would be complete in France without a 2CV!

A somewhat unusual Citroen 11 Limousine, a huge car.

 Citroen DS

and a Citroen Light 15, front wheel drive and well ahead of its time!

 Matra Bonnet Djet

An unknown MG model!

Porsche 911E

'Rochdale Olympic';the bodies were mainly fibreglass and the cars manufactured at Rochdale near Manchester in the UK, hence the name!

Lotus Elise,not sure which variant!

Fiat 500

Renault 750

Triumph TR3

Also see my daily diary HERE

See also My Life Before Charente (updated 16 October 2014)