Who would have thought that I would start writing this blog when everywhere we looked we were checking the sites to ensure they had hardstanding as the ground was absolutely saturated? The weather then changed drastically the other way and the heatwave hit – with us searching out the shade – 37 degrees of craziness. Then the last couple of days some of the areas of France have been hit by torrential rain and storms. Relatively, we have been pretty lucky, but it has been a bit of a weather journey…but at least the rain today has finally given me time to catch up on the long over due blog!

Leaving Challans, we decided to head to the coast again where I had found La Faute-sur-Mer which is on a quiet peninsula with a couple of stunningly beautiful nature reserves and long beaches filled with sand dunes. The area is just North of La Rochelle and not quite as ‘on the tourist track’ as Ile de Re which sits just slightly further South, so relatively tranquil but with all the beauty. It was however, evident to see how it would get full in the summer as there were campsites dotted around the place along the coastline.

We had found a shaded Aire just in the town which was pretty full. It wasn’t the largest area and only a few of the spots were big enough for us because of all the overhanging and encroaching trees, but we only needed one, and we had it, so it didn’t matter.

We had recently noted that there were a lot of cuckoos amongst the incredible amount of bird song, so I looked it up online and apparently this area of France is known as a stop off when the birds are migrating both South and North as not only is the distance apparently perfect, but also the habitat with the wetlands and type of tree that encourage hairy caterpillars! Just the kind of food that Cuckoos thrive on!

A great spot for a few nights, as not only were we able to explore the area and enjoy the surrounding nature, we also found a good market to restock on fresh fruit, veg and fish.

With the Ascension bank holiday looming – despite it being a predicted wet one – we headed to a little town that Keith had found called Saint Jean d’Angely which had a lovely Aire on a lake as well as a beautiful Abbey. Another nice little stop over which was beautifully tranquil and had some nice little walks.

After a few days in land, we headed back to the coast … or at least on to the estuary. We were edging our way closer to the Medoc region….wine was finally in sight!!

Once again Keith had been doing his research and found a great Aire just above a town called Blaye which had an impressive Citadel – which is a UNESCO site, and a great Saturday market.

The estuary is quite wide at this point but with an island in the middle which blocks the view of the other side. Blaye was a strategic point dating back to 14th century for people wanting to quickly get from the North to the South (and vice versa) which is demonstrated by the sheer size of the the Citadel/Fort.

Although smaller vehicles can cross the estuary from Blaye with a ferry now and avoid going all the round and hitting Bordeaux, we had decided to go by road and the journey was pretty good thankfully, however next time we will look at the ferry option as it’d be far quicker and probably the same cost.

We were heading into Medoc, an area that we hadn’t visited previously but had tried a few wines and marked it on our list to pass some time here next time we were coming this way. So, with no real plans this time, we headed to our first France Passion of this trip – Chateau Osmand – and back into the vineyards….

Chateau Osmand is in transition to being an organic vineyard, and we were blown away with the amount of time and effort that they put into marketing their produce as most of the Vineyards we visit are quite amateurish with their marketing despite having amazing produce – especially considering they only have 9 hectares of vine…which is relatively small for a vineyard

We had an hour long tour, taking us through the process they follow – which is quite different to most we have seen previously as it has a multi stage process to both increase the tannins and also the length of time you can lie the wine down for. We have obviously moved on to a new level of wine…. and we like it!! No hesitation in buying a few cases, and we will be back, as not only are they great hosts with good wine, it was also a lovely, tranquil location.

We had planned to take in another market on the Saturday to restock in Lesparre Medoc, but when we arrived the spaces in the Aire were too small for us. So, needing to find a place for the night we took the decision to head back into the Vineyards and ended up at Châteaux Tour Castillon & Moulin de Taffard

Such a beautiful place and wonderful wine. Once again, amazingly welcome and chatty and a stunningly beautiful location despite times obviously being incredibly difficult for them. It is quite funny though, as the son produced a wine following COVID called RIP – it is good, but not as aligned to our taste as the other more aged wines. Another France Passion that we will come back to when we are in the area and buy more wine.

With the heatwave upon us, Keith had found another shaded Aire in Montalivet-des-bains which was on the West coast of the Medoc peninsula. It meant that we were able to catch up with some washing – sorry, probably more detail than you need – but it was also peaceful, despite the whole area being highly populated with campsites which is unsurprising really when you look at the expansive beaches. Not that it wasn’t nice, as it suited our purposes, but it isn’t somewhere we would come back to as it would be horrendously touristy as the season starts and there are so many other beautiful places here.

Searching out the shade again as it was 35 degrees and rising, we decided to head to Pauillac – which in theory is the ‘heart’ of the Medoc region.

Another Bank Holiday weekend – the last of four in May – so in fear of not finding a place, we booked Camping Pauillac – which is a municipal campsite just outside the town with very shady pitches…. some may say ‘overgrown’, but we like to be polite!! But we did cut back the trees to give Fawks a little bit of space. That said, it was incredibly tranquil and very, very hot as it was unfortunately airless too.

We just took it very easy, walked a little along the river and we did venture into one of the big wine houses – simply because it had air conditioning and we were curious as to see what it offered, but didn’t buy from them or do a tasting.

As it was the Whitsunday weekend they had quite a few celebrations on over the three days, including the ‘Fete d’Agneau’ celebrating the arrival of French Lamb. It was quite a sight to see the sheep being sheered and a few meters away the leg of lamb being slowly roasted over the fire…. not one for everyone but it did look pretty tasty!!

As it was actually cooler to be on the bike than walking, we decided to head up to Saint Estephe which is roughly 12km north of Pauillac to explore on the Saturday afternoon. A very beautiful little town/large village – albeit also every sleepy – where we happened upon a little wine shop in the ‘main square’…so felt we should have a quick look and ended up doing a little tasting and buying a couple of local wines …obviously, research is important! Needless to say that we have tried one of the wines since, and it is nowhere near as good as the ones we bought directly from the Vineyards….perhaps that was why it was on offer!

After an incredibly hot weekend, and the weather certainly wasn’t cooling, we decided we were going to still head out to another France Passion Vineyard – but hadn’t decided whether we would stay or not until we saw whether they had any shade. The vineyard was Chateau Moulin Rouge – and once again, great wine – rose and red (old Vines) … so another 19 bottles added to our stock cupboards. As we can only take 48 bottles back to the UK with us following Brexit – we are a little more conscious of the stock levels and are now over our limit with 51….. but will drink some before we leave. So there will still be a little place for something else should we happen to find anything along the route!! Fantastic, accommodating hosts again, and we found a spot under a tree to give us shade – albeit that we needed to move slightly due to an Ant invasion as we appeared to have a branch touching us which gave the ants easy access – it was a lovely overnight stay, and another that we will come back to…. I especially like the bottle options, although not sure we have the right tools to decant the 18 litre one!!

Despite wanting to head south and visit the Olive groves to buy some more Olive oil and also olives, we worked out that we would actually be chasing the heat wave and extending the 35+ degree period for longer. So, as we have actually found some good sources of organic and recent harvest olive oil in the UK, we bit the bullet and decide to head across the country into the Central Massif – another part of France that we haven’t visited for 11 years.

We had found another France Passion destination that looked really interesting – Moulin de la Veyssiere – and decided to head there to see what it had to offer and it is fair to say, we were not disappointed. Set in a beautiful location, the Moulin de la Veyssiere is a Mill that dates back to the 13th Century, milling Walnuts, Chestnuts and Almonds to produce oils and flours. Slightly different to wine tasting, but equally as good… not only producing top quality, flavoursome products, also an incredibly interesting process and history, so well worth the visit.

They have a large, shaded parking area which was beautifully tranquil and as we arrived at lunch time, we headed into the Mill afterwards and joined one of the tours with a group of French friends who wouldn’t stop talking mid afternoon. They walked us through the process step by step, explaining that they had actually paused production for the afternoon as it was simply too hot for them to have the furnaces on in addition to the heat – to be fair they do heat to 500 degrees, so understandable. All of the Almonds, hazelnuts and Walnuts are locally grown and the process – depending on the nut, can take between 1.5hrs and 3 hrs to grind the nut and produce the oil for approximately 35kg of nut.

Feeling educated in the nut milling process, we were then offered 6 different oils to taste, and bought some of their walnuts and flours before walking up the road to pop into the Caviar farm.

We had no idea that this area was so full of culinary delicacies, but it is apparently a bit of a food destination, with Perigueux at the centre of it. The caviar farm was incredible, and also offers tours and lunches, but we decided to save this one for a future visit and simply bought some smoked Sturgeon which was delicious.

The whole area is beautiful and we would like to come back and visit again to do it justice. Neuvic, which is the little local town looked wonderful as we passed through it and the walking and cycling routes were abundant. So, we have added it – and a couple of the incredible sounding restaurants to our list to return to and visit.

We had hoped to stop at Perigueux to take in some of the culinary delights, but having read some of the reviews for the Aire and due to the heat meaning we wanted to leave windows open, we decided it wasn’t worth the risk and instead, this time would pass it by.

Therefore, we headed up into the hills a little more – approximately 550m, so quite a bit to be fair – to Ussel, where we found a lovely Aire by a lake, where we had a nice breeze as well so could cool down a little, restock the fridge as there was an excellent Intermarche, and visit our first restaurant in a while for lunch….Cafe Ventador. All in all an excellent little stop off point.

It is fair to say that Keith’s meal was slightly more indulgent than mine, and in the true French style oozed butter, cheese and cream wherever possible – but mine was still delicious and the restaurant was incredibly accommodating.

After a couple of days of tranquillity and slightly cooler weather, we moved a little further east, following our new route where Keith had found a lovely Aire by the side of the river in Moulins. Once again there was shade, a breeze, good walking and cycling …. and a great market which helped us soak up a few days of heat until the storm came and the weather finally broke.

Talking of storms….. we have been cooking up several… well, possibly not a ‘storm’, but as always, we have been enjoying our food to the full and changing some of our existing recipes to adapt to my ‘ intolerances’, whilst ensuring that every meal is full of flavour and nutrition. It is amazing how creative you become when you love your food so much and need to adapt for one reason or another. Our incredibly flavoursome Chilli, which used to be completely Vegan using cacoa to provide the depth and flavour, had previously been adapted to use Tempeh, and now more recently we have tried it with one can of kidney beans and any firm fish – like monkfish or a good chunky white fish. Our Spinach and mushroom tart, which used to also have black beans, now has prawns or trout…. which adds another dimension.

It does really make you appreciate that the only limitations to a diet and restricting flavour are in your head – as when there is a will, there is a way.

New recipes however – as in completely new – and delicious are as follows:-
– Gluten Free Pittas – which are not only incredibly easy to make, but also pretty tasty
– No Bake Almond and Walnut Brownie with optional Ganache topping
– Fudgy Chocolate Peanut Butter Brownie

The only issue now that we have so many varieties of no bake (and also baked) brownies – is how to choose between them…. I feel a bit of a bake off test coming on soon!!

I know its a long blog, and we have done a fair bit of hopping – so just to ensure you can get a picture of where we have been I have added the map below….