We had to cover quite a few miles today
travelling via Nantes and Niort and our first stop is planned in a place called
Coulon which is a nice little village where there are boat roads around the
marshes. We arrived just after lunch and had a quick picnic before hiring a
boat and Captain to take us around for a couple of hours to explore the area.
The guide/punting poleman/captain had good English and was able to provide a
running commentary, mostly about himself, of the areas we were visiting and
then came a side stream where he used his pole to stir up the bottom of the
stream thereby releasing methane gas to which he set fire to. Interesting thing
to do and we hoped that the boat would not go up in flames.
Back to the car and we continued our
journey down to the river Charente and to a town outside of Saints called Saint
Sauvant where we had a hotel booked of unknown quality which turned out to be
an absolute delight. The rooms were air-conditioned a really nice and so we all
met up by the smallish swimming pool and tested a bottle of Chardonnay whilst
sitting in the sun with legs in the pool, what a way to spend the late
afternoon. This town was in the sticks (as they say) and so we had an excellent
dinner in the Hotel and sat by the pool whilst the Hotel seemed to be quite
full. This Hotel was originally a derelict block of old houses running uphill
on a bend and so you could enter the hotel on three different levels whilst
walking up the hill. The owner was an architect and he had the vision to see
what could be done with old building but they have done an excellent job and
all the fixtures and fitting were of modern design.
And so to bed.
