Diary for D 'n A tandem encore


Cognac to Angouleme (56 km) to Exideuil (66 km)

2017-06-26 to 2017-07-27

Monday was very pleasant easy cycling on a well posted cycle route upstream along the Charente River (which gives its name to the whole department, and was a vital transport route back in the day).  And another rambling, quirky, likeable B&B at the end of the day.  Also the day when we completed our first 1000 km of the trip!!!!!!!!

Monday was also our first properly wet day of the trip, with forecasts worsening over the next few days, so we took plotted and researched the next few days accommodation allowing us to hide indoors if necessary, and still make it to Oradour-sur-Glane, and get back onto our main route.

Angouleme’s immediate attraction is the number of murals through the old town sitting on top of the hill behind the remparts.  The town has a museum of ‘bande dessine’ (which we didn’t have time to see) and these cartoon figures are the basis of the murals.

On Tuesday we headed out of the valley of the Charente to Exideuil along the Vienne river (which river we will be following towards the Loire over several days).  Rain threatened all day and a huge deluge finally started as we passed a sports field with a very convenient shelter.  We shared the space with some woodcutters interrupted in their cutting down a small plantation of poplars and had quite a sociable half hour till the storm blew over.  These plantations are planted by local communes and get harvested every 25 years or so.  The main trunks go into the plywood industry, where they get ‘peeled like a roll of toilet paper’, but one of the uses of this ‘peel’ is to make the boxes that wrap cheeses, such as the Camembert cheeses in so many supermarkets.

Our B&B for two nights is owned by an English couple.  He is a plumber and most of his work comes from the very large number of English people who have settled in this area.  We gathered that Brexit & the pound sterling exchange rates are concerns for this enclave, many of them retirees.