Next stop on our way back to Brittany after our first stop there in early June was Vichy where we would stay the night as guests of our friends Steve and Jane Thompson.  Steve and Flavio had been fellow Arabic and linguistics students at PCL (now Westminster University) back in the 1970s and more lately worked together as ELT author / publisher at Macmillan.  Being both ELT freelancers, Steve and Jane had opted for la belle vie in France.  Like us, they too have had spells in the Middle East at different times in their lives so we had much in common to talk about – as well as of course, Steve’s and Flavio’s old days when they would have been wearing flared trousers and denim jackets and playing highly competitive table football to the sound of Comfortably Numb at the PCL cafeteria in Red Lion Square in Holborn. We spent a lovely evening with them at Bellerive in Vichy and dined at the Table d’Antoine Restaurant in the centre ville.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Vichy is known as a spa and resort town but also as the seat of government and de facto capital of ‘Vichy France’ headed by Marshal Petain during the WWII Nazi German occupation from 1940 to 1944.  It lies on the Allier river in Auvergne in central France and its architecture is very much that of a spa town, with many grand villas which would have been built for the well-heeled, though we’re not sure they were to our taste.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The dinner at La Table d’Antoine was very classy and Judith and I felt a little self-conscious in our tatty campers’ clothes!  Antoine didn’t disappoint however – the quality of the food was first-rate and not the sort of thing you can ever hope to emulate at home.  We went for the ‘Decouverte du Terroir’ (Regional Cuisine) 3-course menu which came with ‘mise-en-bouche, pre-dessert et mignardises’ meaning that between the courses we had extra little ‘mouth-teasers’ as well as the regional cheeses before dessert!  In the very best tradition of good restaurants in France, each time our different courses were put in front of  us, the head waiter would decorously stand back, wait for a pause in the conversation, and inform us in detail what each dish consisted of – “Messieurs/dames, la tarte sablee au parmesan, truite marinee avec compote de citron jaune” (lemon and cheese pie with marinated trout) or  “le blanc de poulet fermier d’Auvergne sauce satay avec parfait d’aubergine fumee” (farm-reared Auvergne chicken with satay sauce and smoked aubergine flan) before, ritual over, giving us a little bow and stepping back discreetly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After saying goodbye to Steve and Jane and wishing them a happy and badly needed holiday in Greece, we put the Tom Tom away and followed the most direct route in the direction of the Morbihan in Brittany, crossing the Indre-et-Loire, Pays de la Loire and Loire Atlantique in the process.  Brittany was just a touch too far though to cover comfortably in one day and so we stopped off for probably what was to be our last campsite stop in a the medieval town of Loches in the Indre-et-Loire, 45 kms southeast of Tours.  Loches has an impressive castle – the Chateau de Loches – which was a residence of the Counts of Anjou then the kings of France, after it was seized from King John of England by Philip Augustus in c AD 1250.

On the way to Loches, we passed the pretty little towns of Saint-Poucain-sur-Sioule and Vallon-en-Sully. By then, the weather had well and truly turned and we had a wet and coldish night, which came as a bit of a shock after the sizzling temperatures of less than a week earlier.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In Saint-Pourcain, we had stopped for a light lunch and also visited the Eglise Sainte Croix (Church of the Holy Cross) where, as if pre-destined to do so now that we’d almost reached the end of our journey, we saw a statue of St Christopher (the saint of travellers) bearing the inscription “Merci a St Christophe” underneath. Yes indeed, we were thankful.