Chapter 15teen: The Charentes then into Brittany

The Charentes then into Britanny

I would have loved to have posted some great photos here to help tell the story of our visits in the Charentes, staying with our friends, Theresa and Tommy at their Chez Thomas in Segonzac, but, sadly, I laid my camera down. After a few thousand clicks, I needed to cool off the camera and give my trigger finger a rest.  I will, however, resort to some quickie little smartphone shots

I recommend to all explorers of France, that if you ever want to visit the Cognac region, namely, the Charentes, book some time at the Chez Thomas Chambre d'Hôtes.  The famous city of Cognac, and touring opportunities at the distilleries there, are only a short drive away.

Segonzac is the real centre of the cognac producers. This is where Raymond Desse, grand viticulteur, produces his award-winning cognac. 

On this visit to France we visited him again, honoured to be invited to his home with our friends for an aperatif dînatoire, prepared by his wife Marie Noel, a most gracious hostess, and a true ambassador for France. 

Raymond proudly showed us his award, a distinction of honour in his industry. 

We celebrated with samples of his eau de vie.






M. Desse gave us a tour of his property. 

Several years ago he planted a small grove of oak trees at the back of his house. The trees facilitate the propagation of truffles. These he harvests in February with the help of a friend's dog.

The other side of the house is flanked by a perimeter of bushes (sorry, I did not get the plant name). These also promote the growth of truffles. Raymond harvests these ones in May/June.





Tommy has the truffle eye: he picked one out of the ground on our little tour!

Wow! Now who has their own private "truffle plantations"? And this is not all. M. Desse also cultivates his own escargots.

He picks the snails off his grape vines and places them into a big garden pot that he covers with a lid. There is flour in the pot for the snails to eat, which purges them of toxins.

Before we said au revoir, we followed the viticulteur into his personal cave where we selected a very special bottle of VSOP to take home to Canada, and two bottles of his Pineau des Charentes for consumption during our weeks in France. 

The last glass of the Pineau we consumed this evening!

Merci beaucoup, Monsieur et Madame Desse!

With the exception of just a few wet days, we have been blessed with almost two months of rain-free days in France. T-shirts and shorts on a lot of hot April days. Friends back home in southwest BC have repeatedly messaged us about their biblical rains - 40 days and 40 nights ... 


The rain did finally catch up with us though, when we pointed our little Peugeot to the Atlantic coast. We pulled into Brouage for a look. 

17C Citadel

This pre-Roman settlement had, by the 16th century, developed into one of the most thriving commercial centres/seaports on the south Atlantic coast of France. 

More than half a century ago Brouage was the centre of France's salt trade.



This, the birthplace of Samuel de Champlain (some say) is a "must-see" for the French Canadian in search of his/her roots.

I was jumping in and out of the car between rain showers in the old fortified city, determined to capture some of our past with my lens. 

To avoid a sudden downpour I ducked into a musty, cavernous chamber at the top of a flight of worn stone stairs. My eyes quickly grew accustomed to the dark and I was able to make out some of the details in the room. 

I was in the latrine. I swear there were about six black holes on a smooth old bench, a big bum width between each. Wow! Hell, I'll pay a euro to use the toilet by the Tourist Office.

I had a lot of questions, among which:
What were these guys talking about, all shitting together?
How bad was the air? 
Was it unisex/co-ed?


We stayed at a hotel in La Rochelle that night, grey, cold and dreary in the Atlantic rain.

Tour de la Lanterne

The seafood dinner was excellent, even with (maybe, because of) the smell of the muddy banks in the lowering tide.

Dinner Recommendation: Restaurant Le Bar André, Rue St Jean du Pérot

...ooo0ooo...

The following piece is a jump ahead to the dark side. 

I promise that the next post will be a much brighter Brittany.

Dinan is the city in the north of Brittany if you have a penchant for the Dark Ages with crooked half-timbered buildings, streets shared by only old people and tourists. We felt we should stop here to check it out. Ricky Steeves recommends it highly ...

It was a rainy day and very gloomy in the old city. My wife used the word, "spooky".

I wanted to find a restaurant that served up local Breton dishes. A Crêperie seemed to fit the bill - in the photo, located under the arch, bottom right, of the 1,000 year old building. 

I was sure we had chosen the right eatery: 
Firstly, because I was having trouble understanding the French.

It wasn't. It was Breton.

Secondly, the food - I had no idea what it was. I like mysteries. But it turned out to be downright medieval. 

"Slow-food-France" has both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, the slow, civilized pace is healthy, calming, and provides an ambience for good conversation; on the other hand, the pace can be unhealthy, stressful, and conducive to grumbling and nastiness. 

I was famished by the time we were shown to our table. When the food finally arrived I was ecstatic about the grand, veined  saucisson laying large on my plate. I ravenously wolfed down the first half of the andouiette. Then my taste buds kicked in. They slowed down my knife and fork. I put smaller and smaller pieces of the sausage in my mouth, garnishing each one with more and more dijon. 

After much ado, the Breton wiener, reduced now to a thumb-sized length, lay lonely and abandoned on my plate. 

Joanne said, "What's wrong?"

"I don't think I like this. What is it anyway?"

"Chitterlings," she said, with a smile on her face. "Tripe."

I hate tripe. It is the only thing in the world I don't eat. This might be a psychosexual repression Freudian thing from my childhood. Ugh! Andouiette. I should have known.

We got out of Dinan.

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Chapter 12elve: On to Gascony

On to Gascony

Toulouse, after Paris, Lyon, and Marseille, is the fourth largest city in France. Except for a lunch break on the drive from Montpellier we did not spend any time in Toulouse.

City Hall

While there is much to see here, alas, we were on a mission to get to small town Gascony and into the country of the Auquitane.

Toulouse, the capital city of Haute Garonne, is Europe's largest Aerospace centre, the hub of the aviation industry for France and the rest of the EU. 

The city has a fascinating history for those who want to delve into it. What stood out for me in several reads was the widespread power of the Bishops of Toulouse, in a diocese that has included most of southwest France since pre-Roman times.

The Garonne River winds its way past Toulouse. There are lots of canals in parts of the city, the most significant of which is the Canal du Midi, that links the Atlantic Ocean at Bordeaux, through Toulouse to the Mediterranean Sea.

One thing that really stands out in the architecture of this region is the use of red brick. North to Montauban and east to Albi, in all types of construction from barns and bridges to houses and cathedrals, red brick is overwhelmingly the dominant building material.

the yellow fields of rapeseed are in full bloom, soon to be harvested for oil

Our major destination after Montpellier is Biarritz where we will stay at a Chambre d' Hotes for three days. It would seem that the logical road-trip would be over the Pyrenees, through Pau, then down to the coast. However, I have kind of had enough of twisty mountain roads. As stunning as that drive would be, I wanted a break from the peaks and valleys and hairpin turns.

So we drove north on the toll road for a while, then cut west into farm country. 

In Gers, I took off for Condom. 

The countryside was fabulous with rolling fields of green, patched and capped with crops of brilliant yellow rapeseed. This plant, known in Canada as Canola oil, is used not only as a consumable vegetable oil, but also as a biofuel. (more on this when the blog takes you to Normandy).

Cultivated fields gave way to vineyards as we approached our destination. Gascony wines may not be universally known, but they are delightful. We stocked up.

Our accommodation was right off the map, unidentified road on our GPS display - just a line that we were driving along. Not to worry,  the GPS coordinates of latitude & longitude - degrees, minutes, and seconds - that were emailed to us, were way better than what Marco Polo, Christopher Columbus, and Roald Amundsen had in their day. We arrived at a big old farm, like a bastide, creatively restored and updated. Our room was decorated in a Kathryn Hepburn theme, right out of Meilleur Gites et Jardins. 
(sorry, was too tired to take pictures).

Not a word of English was spoken, so I employed my version of French, which has been improving daily. Here in the remote region of Gascony, a stretch from Condom, I was accused of being either Swiss or Quebecois. This, they accepted. I did not prevaricate.

Hunger approached and we were directed to a fine restaurant in the city for the evening meal an hour before sunset and returned to our quarters in the dark.

The seldom travelled road (above), winding along the Petite Baise River is magical in the light of a sunny day, but spooky black at night when we drove back on it with faith in the great gift of our geostationary satellite positioning system.

Normandy is known for its calvados, the Charente for its cognac, and Gascony is known for its armagnac. We did not buy a bottle, but we did purchase the prunes soaked in armagnac. My gosh, what a taste. Like honey to a bear, we'd scratch the bark off a tree for it - a wonderful end-of-the-day treat.

Before leaving this warm pre-summer countryside - the land of Alexandre Dumas and his Three Musketeers, incidentally - we toured the 13th Century fortified village of Larressingle, one the one hundred or so Plus Belles Villages de France.

The castle, had much to delight the eye of the new world tourist: stone bridge, arrow slits, moat, embattlements, gothic arches, towers, embankments, and crenellations; and ghosts for the wandering mind.

In the medieval church stands Saint Sigismond, considered to be one of the first Christian Kings. He was martyred in 504. 

"He strikes a rather gay pose." (Joanne)

We piqueniqued  here with the usual baguette, pâté, fromage, cornichons, fruits frais, et naturellement, un petit verre de vin, just pumped that morning into our travelling carafe (emptied water bottle) at the Condom Co-op Cave. 

The last hour or so of our drive to the coast was through some decidedly dull and boring countryside. But we were rewarded by the cheerful, friendly greeting of our host when we arrived in Biarritz. Little did we know, that not only would there be more adventures in store for us during the next three days, but we would have a new special friendship develop while there.

Dinner Recommendation: Hotel Continental, Condom

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