{"id":6323,"date":"2025-07-08T22:11:31","date_gmt":"2025-07-08T22:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6323"},"modified":"2025-12-24T21:50:53","modified_gmt":"2025-12-24T21:50:53","slug":"8-navigation-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/?p=6323","title":{"rendered":"8. NAVIGATION ERROR!"},"content":{"rendered":"

So, it’s time to leave Brant\u00f4me.\u00a0 \u00a0We are heading a bit further north to the other side of Poitiers, just short of Parthenay, to a place called Chalandray.\u00a0 All reviews of the Camping du Bois de St. Hilaire say it’s a nice peaceful site with a swimming pool – an essential feature in these temperatures!\u00a0 We were planning just to stay one night, so we didn’t choose our pitch very carefully.<\/p>\n

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(In the end we stayed a second night in order to explore the area a bit.)\u00a0 At least we had easy access to the sanitaires!<\/p>\n

Swimming pool – tick.<\/p>\n

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Peaceful – well all those reviewers had never visited at harvest time!\u00a0 There’s a factory, Groupe COC Agricultural Cooperative, a few hundred metres away.\u00a0 They process grain for animal feed and to produce bio-fuels.\u00a0 Now, there are literally hundreds of thousands of fields of wheat and barley hereabouts.\u00a0 With the warm, sunny weather there’s a LOT of harvesting going on.\u00a0 Everybody’s at it.\u00a0 I bet there isn’t a single combine harvester standing idle within 100 km of Chalandray!\u00a0 Grain is arriving at the processing plant from first thing in the morning to late in the evening.\u00a0 It’s coming in by massive trucks and huge trailers hauled by tractors.\u00a0 There is a little railway line nearby, but I haven’t seen any sign of rail delivery of the grain, but we can hear the trains!<\/p>\n

Our day of exploration took in thousands of hectares of wheat – much of it in various stages of harvesting.\u00a0 We found the little (and largely deserted) villages of Th\u00e9nesay, Gourg\u00e9 and Pressigne scattered amongst the golden, yellow, swaying crops interconnected by hundreds of tiny country roads.\u00a0 At many of the intersections, who had right of way was “unclear” at best.\u00a0 But no one would argue with the convoies exceptionnels agriculturals, although, to be fair, we didn’t meet any of them on this occasion.\u00a0 They were all off-road doing their thing.\u00a0 Starting the process of getting tonnes of fodder heading towards our campsite!<\/p>\n

Time for some civilisation.\u00a0 Saint-Loup-Lamair\u00e9 was a rather more animated place a bit further north.\u00a0 There were heaps of people at a couple of bars.\u00a0 Drinking coffees and pressions in the shade of old, pollarded plane trees in the square by the church, l’Eglise Notre-Dame de l’Assomption.<\/p>\n

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There was also a bus-load of youngsters trying desperately to NOT complete a treasure hunt in town.\u00a0 Collections of non-hunters were strewn about in a shady corners and in the church, while a lone enthusiast quizzed us on the age of the buildings in the Grand Rue Th\u00e9ophane Venard.\u00a0 We found the street on the map.\u00a0 I suggested she walk down there and have a good look at any dates engraved over doors.\u00a0 But that’s a couple of hundred metres walk.\u00a0 She elected not to bother!\u00a0 All my French language efforts wasted!<\/p>\n

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Glenda found a patch of her favourite flowers behind the church.\u00a0 We also got fleeting glimpses of the Chateau as we left town.<\/p>\n

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(Clearly not my photo.)\u00a0 The present Ch\u00e2teau, constructed 1609 \u2013 1626 was built with a footprint in the shape of an H in the honor of King Henry the IV.\u00a0 I knew you needed to know that!<\/p>\n

Moving a few kms north we found the interestingly named town of Airvault.\u00a0 Sounds like the HQ of a company offering cloud-based storage for more of our useless back-ups!\u00a0 Actually it’s another town with a grandiose medieval centre.\u00a0 I know we are travelling out of season, but it’s July in less than a week’s time.\u00a0 Parking in these towns is ridiculously easy.\u00a0 The main problem is deciding which space has more shade!\u00a0 Obviously there’s a church, Saint-Pierre d’Airvault.<\/p>\n

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A massive edifice for a town of about 3,300 inhabitants – way less than half the population of our home village.\u00a0 And we are endowed with just a small, inconspicuous Congregational Evangelical Church (with seating for 50 souls?) and a tiny chapel which is much smaller than the pub opposite.\u00a0 (It’s also much less well frequented than the pub!)<\/p>\n

Almost adjacent to the church we found “Les Halles” …<\/p>\n

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Built at the end of the Middle Ages, they took on their current appearance in 1846.\u00a0 The Halles testify to the importance of the grain trade in medieval times.\u00a0 The structure is 40 metres long and 10 metres wide.\u00a0 It continues its trading history, hosting a weekly market on Saturday mornings, while the grain trading has moved to Chalandray, next door to our campsite.\u00a0 This impressive historical site is also home to a peculiar creature with a white hat!<\/p>\n

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I tried to match the photo (taken in 1846, soon after it’s restoration) on an old postcard but couldn’t quite get the angle right.\u00a0 Need more time – and possibly a step ladder!<\/p>\n

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In keeping with all French villages and towns, the local loo is well signposted.<\/p>\n

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I hope not at the same time!<\/p>\n

We ended the day in Parthenay.\u00a0 But by then the heat was getting to us.\u00a0 Not only that, but we were a day early!\u00a0 All the clothes shops had notices in their windows.\u00a0 “Ferm\u00e9 exceptionellement so we can change the price labels.\u00a0 Sales start tomorrow morning.\u00a0 D\u00e9sol\u00e9.”<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

That had taken a lot of organising!<\/p>\n

We are moving on – but wait.\u00a0 Someone said something about a navigational error.\u00a0 For some reason, best known to person in the right hand seat, the sat nav had not been programmed with our destination when leaving our pine forest.\u00a0 Well, it is pretty easy.\u00a0 \u00a0Four kms to the roundabout outside Brant\u00f4me (“don’t go through the town whatever you do!”) then head north.\u00a0 We knew the road because we had used it the previous evening to re-fuel.\u00a0 Straight on till you get to Angoul\u00eame.\u00a0 An hour later, arriving on the outskirts of Nontron, Limoges was signed straight ahead.\u00a0 But we aren’t going to Limoges.\u00a0 Far too far to the East!\u00a0 Emergency, high-level, managerial discussions debated our options.\u00a0 It transpired that outside Brant\u00f4me (at the 4 km marker!) I should have taken the other road going north.\u00a0 An easy mistake to make, but I did vaguely wonder why Angoul\u00eame was never once signposted on our road which gradually steered us off to the east.<\/p>\n

Options:<\/p>\n

1.\u00a0 Go back to Brant\u00f4me and start again,<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0 Go on to Limoges then turn sharp left, or<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0 Take the D75 cross-country to Angoul\u00eame.<\/p>\n

While Glenda was agonizing with a choice between option 1 and 2, I did a 27 point turn amongst a lot of bemused and in one case, annoyed, Frenchies.\u00a0 As soon as we turned round, Angoul\u00eame was signposted to the right.\u00a0 On the D75!\u00a0 I turned right with Glenda still concerned about the caravan-suitability of the departmental road.\u00a0 The pantechnicons coming the other way suggested we should be OK – always provided we managed to avoid hitting one of them!<\/p>\n

One slight bonus in all of this was that we found a delightful place for lunch with parking for at least 20 caravans.\u00a0 L’Or\u00e9e du P\u00e9rigord on the outskirts of Marthan.\u00a0 It looked REALLY good and set up for maybe 200 diners.\u00a0 Sadly for us, it was only coffee time.\u00a0 So we had our two allong\u00e9s and got back on the hunt for Angoul\u00eame.<\/p>\n

So all was not lost, although we were a little misplaced for a while.\u00a0 But you already know we found ourselves again!\u00a0 The navigating officer is now hyper-alert at any and all ronds-points!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So, it’s time to leave Brant\u00f4me.\u00a0 \u00a0We are heading a bit further north to the other side of Poitiers, just short of Parthenay, to a place called Chalandray.\u00a0 All reviews of the Camping du Bois de St. Hilaire say it’s… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spain-france"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6323"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6352,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6323\/revisions\/6352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tappstravels.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}