After a long and interesting conversation at breakfast with our B&B owners Nick and Mary, we decided to skip the weekly market in Confolens and check out the nearby St Junien market instead. Evidently Confolens is just barely large enough to hold a weekly market, but too small to make it a big one. On the other hand, once a month they do the big on here, unfortunately it’s not this week.
The St Junien isn’t actually that big either, but big enough. We’d enjoyed our picnic lunch the other day so much that we had decided to repeat it today, so after an exploratory tour around the market, we picked up some more roast chicken (this time with stuffing), carrot salad, a lovely loaf of bread, some little donuts, and a big block of very tasty cheese. As a bonus, the cheese seller gave us a rose for Mother’s Day, which was nice.
I’d parked in a 2-hour parking zone, but our car didn’t come equipped with one of those little cardboard parking disks that show when you arrived, so my OCD kicked in and I didn’t feel at all comfortable leaving the car there, even having written a little note to explain when we’d arrived. We didn’t spent much time in St Junien after buying supplies, instead loading them into the back and setting Gav-o in the direction of Rochefoucauld and its little chateau for a picnic break.
On the way we passed by Rochechouart again, so stopped so that Jamie could take some pictures of the chateau there from down below, which is apparently the best viewpoint. We did, and then noticed a sign pointing to a restaurant which we’d been thinking of trying. I followed the little road into the countryside, expecting to see the restaurant at any second, but no such luck. We eventually came to an intersection of three roads – as there was no one about and I’d had enough of driving aimlessly, I pulled over into the wrong lane at the side of the intersection to turn around.
Of course, the instant I did this cars arrived at two of the other roads leading into the intersection. Then, the comedy show of four wheel drive dune buggies started pulling around from behind me and past the bewildered onlookers. It felt like watching one of those little clown cars, from which 37 clowns somehow climb out of. There must have been 25 of the damn things driving past me, all the while I’m parked on the wrong side of the road in the middle of a three way intersection, unable to move. Classic.
Eventually, the last of them passed by and I could get out of there. I put it in first, dropped the clutch and flew up the mountain back to the top of Rochechouart, back to more or less where I’d started.
From there, we drove the rest of the way to Rochefoucauld to find our picnic venue. We couldn’t find one. We briefly considered just sitting at one of the benches, but with all the roast chicken and drippy carrot salad, it would have been a mess and almost impossible to eat so back into the car we went.
This time, we cleverly set Gav to look for a park nearby to Angouleme, our eventual destination for the day, with the expectation that they’d have somewhere to sit and eat there. Fortunately, we weren’t able to put this dangerous assumption to the test as we found a rest stop on the highway just outside the city. Lunch was excellent.
The rest of the drive into Angouleme was uneventful, other than the rather successful decision to disregard Gav’s suggestion that we turn down a random side road rather than follow the well marked signs for city center. The main city center is cleverly positioned at the very top of a hill (we’ve noted that the French and Italians love doing this, I think to make Jamie and I sweat a bit trying to find a wine bar at the top), so nice and steep for me to practice my hill starts (I’m getting good at them).
We got up to a point and I gave up on the narrow and steep roads – I saw a sign for a parking lot and swerved in. It actually turned out to be just at the very edge of the old town, which was what we were aiming for in the first place, so very well navigated on my part I thought.
Angouleme turned out to be a much more interesting town that we’d expected. Lots of pedestrian streets, loads of cafes and bars to choose from. Not what I’d call a gourmet place with very few places appearing to offer anything other than the average, but quite nice nonetheless.
We spent a very relaxing day wandering the streets, taking photos and looking at the adverts in the windows of all the immobliers (real estate agents) for local deals. We were forced to stop a few times for medicinal refreshments, which provided us the opportunity to indulge in two of our favourite hobbies – drinking wine and people watching. There is no end to either in Angouleme as far as I can see.
We’d found what looked like a good restaurant on one of the little pedestrian streets and Jamie phoned for reservations later in the evening – we think it was called “Les Artistes” or something similar. Another café and hour of people watching later, it was time to return for dinner. We sat outside in the little terrace behind the restaurant and enjoyed a very tasty dinner. Unfortunately the sun had started to go down and while the shorts and short sleeved shirt I’d left with in the morning had been excellent all day, in the shade with a bit of a breeze blowing they weren’t quite up to the job.
Leaving Angouleme, or at least the parking lot turned out to be more of a challenge than we’d been expecting. We found our parking lot and the car, but when we tried to put the ticket in the machine to pay, it read it a few times and then spit it back out again, saying something about being unable to read it. We tried a few more times, then went in search of another ticket machine to pay. We couldn’t find one. We returned to our original one and pressed the assistance button. A tinny voice bellowed out at us in French, and we explained in our best French what the situation was. More tinnily bellowed French, and we understood that we were to proceed to the exit.
Once there, the options were limited. There was a gate across the exit, but next to it another pay machine. I got out and tried to pay again, with the same result. I pressed the assistance button at this new machine and explained again that it wasn’t reading. Another long stream of incomprehensible French. I tried putting the ticket in the exit machine reader. Nothing, but I got yelled at in French again. Tried to pay again, more yelling. Eventually, the guy said something about mailing the ticket, which would help in the long run, but not in getting us out of the parking lot. More yelling, this time about a white box.
After some time, I realized that the voice wanted me to put the ticket in the little white mailbox on the far wall. I figured that I wouldn’t have a ticket at all if I did that, however the ticket I did have was useless so I wouldn’t be much farther behind, and if worst came to worst we could simply live in the garage for the rest of the holiday, or until someone came to rescue us.
As soon as I put the ticket into the mailbox, the voice came back yelling something else. I got back into the car, and as soon as I did that, the barrier rose, as if by magic. We drove forward towards freedom.
Gav-o played his silly little trick of sending us down a very small side road in the middle of Angouleme, but after we worked out what he was up to, we retaliated by following the well marked signs out of town. We got back to Confolens just as the sun had set and have been enjoying the quiet relaxation of reading and writing for the rest of the evening. Tomorrow is French mother’s day and a Sunday, so we’re not expecting much to be open. We’ll see how it goes.
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