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) 

Anne has a week's holiday in the Charente!

We are going away on holiday in the next few days and will be pretty much without an internet connection until we return in early July. I thought I would put a few photos of Anne's visit on a post before we go.  You can follow more of her travels (with more detail) and what we saw at her blog Anne in Oxfordshire. Be patient with her though, as she has 100's, maybe 1000's of photos to go through!!

Part of the  superb and very well preserved heating system discovered by archaeologists at the Roman complex of Cassinomagus, near Chassenon

Anne taking a photo of the privately owned Rochechouart chateau.

One day in the Dordogne at Brantome. The idyllic river Dronne!

Anne in Brantome at the weirs

Abbey de la Couronne;the ruins near Angouleme.

Waiting for a  storm to pass; the covered market in old  Angouleme

The ruins of the  Chateau of St  Germain.

We were lucky enough, while at the above Chateau, to meet up with  Citroën Traction Avant enthusiasts on a club run :-)

We both left with one of these badges.

Anne at the 13th Century courthouse entrance in Confolens.

Saw this flowery bike in Lesterps.

A visit to the chocolate factory in La Rochefoucauld. Yum!

Anne at the Lavoir in St Adjutory.

Eglise St Jacques at Tusson.

This strange coniferous tree was growing in Nanteuil_en_Vallee Arboretum.

Anne hugging a 250 year old plane tree at Peyrassoulat.

and another hug from me. Thanks Anne for taking this photo.

Time to say good bye at Angouleme station.  We all had a great week thanks to Nigel's planning, despite the constant and prolonged showers, which always threatened to disrupt things.

Hope you all have a good month; see you sometime in July.

A Visit to Cellefrouin, Part 1

Seeming at first glance to be” just another” lovely French historic and rural village, Cellefrouin, set in the steep sided Font river valley, seems to have more than its fair share of interesting features, some of which I will show you in this pictorial ramble and some in part 2, as there is too much for one post!

This is the local  map for walkers, a common feature of Charente villages and erected for the benefit of the many French and foreign visitors who enjoy rambling through the totally unspoilt scenery!

Using this information, we took this small untarred back road, parallel to the river, to see if we could find the watermill reputed to exist in a nearby hamlet. No luck with that, but then another delight appeared around a corner!

This charming but neglected little building next to the river is, I believe, the last remnant of the railway halt which served the village. That must have been a long time ago, as there is no indication of where the track used to run, save for the nearby river bridge (below), across which the railway must have passed.

The river Font, flowing westwards.

The village's old weighbridge. As you will have seen from earlier blogs, the  authorities like to preserve the old ways of life and these little features are generally well-kept, some even boasting flower baskets  in the summer!

The hotel and restaurant on the main road through the village. This forms quite a busy route for lorries, as the road takes non-motorway traffic, following the river's course, west to east across the area. On the chilly but dry November day we visited, all downstairs shutters were closed up, as you can see! Many such businesses shut down for holidays before Christmas and this could be the reason for the lack of activity.

Almost next door is the Mairie, presumably closed for lunch! A grand building for a relatively small village of 500 or so inhabitants.

Just across the road, we saw this lovely fountain and water trough. Below and to the left in the picture, a little stream runs  downhill in a deep channel, away to the main river.

With my liking for mysterious windows and doors, I just couldn't resist this example, set in a huge stone block for some forgotten reason!!

Iron gates in unmistakable French style, but these need some TLC!

and last but certainly not least in  Cellefrouin part 1, the War Memorial. 

Part two to follow next week with more places of interest in the village.

P.S. I also have a daily photo dairy, sometimes interesting sometimes very boring!  http://photodiarydps.blogspot.fr/ 

 

See also - My Life Before Charente Updated 27/11/12