I had another disturbed night and woke up at 11:21pm after falling asleep quickly at first. Lots of thoughts were running through my mind (I wish sometimes I didn't have such a vivid imagination!) about the lack of a key for the back door. I managed to get back to sleep, but woke up at about 3:00am to absolute darkness and silence. I went to the loo, and the smell of marijuana was really strong on the landing. I normally sleep with earplugs, but for the rest of the night, I slept without them so I could hear any noises! I was heartily glad when it was about 7:00am and I could get up!
I made coffee, and Sophie said she'd had a great night's sleep and hadn't woken until about 5:00am when the birdsong brought her back to consciousness. I had heard cockerels crowing, birds singing and a lamb baaing! Before getting ready, I wrote a review in the guestbook and read the other messages; everyone raved about the place! We hadn't had any dealings with Delphine, Maxime's wife, and Sophie said she didn't even look at us when she was out in the grounds. Perhaps it was because we were only staying one night and hadn't booked any activities?
We didn't take advantage of the breakfast Maxime had left us, since we were going to stop on the autoroute for coffee and granola. Sophie stripped both beds, and I hoovered downstairs and left the bathroom clean. We ventured outside cautiously in case the guard dogs were still on the loose!
Maxime appeared to open the gate for us, we said goodbye, and we set off along narrow country roads. It was a gorgeous day, and the countryside was looking beautiful. At one point on the road, we passed a horse that whinnied at us as if he was expecting us to stop! Just before we reached a bigger road, we pulled off, and Sophie programmed the address of our Airbnb in Les Lèches, near Bergerac, into her phone.
Ignoring the directions that took us through Paris (why?), we drove via Rennes and Nantes and saw signs for Poitiers, which is twinned with Northampton. We travelled for quite a time on the N137, a fast dual carriageway with multiple slip roads and very few aires. We pulled off at a village étape, Crévin, to eat breakfast and have a coffee, but we had a real struggle finding the public loos!
A lot of our journey was also on the A10, a much busier motorway than I'd been expecting. The scenery was mainly agricultural, with trees frequently lining the road to prevent us from seeing the countryside. We saw quite a few Brits, lots of Belgians and Germans, and even a Swedish Mercedes which passed us twice. We stopped at a large aire for lunch and bought food for dinner this evening. We had already brought pasta and a sauce with us, so we supplemented this with ham and chicken, some cheese, a baguette, milk, desserts and more water. This would do us until we were able to do a big shop tomorrow. As we sat and ate our lunch in the car, the temperature was about 35 °C outside. Phew!
We stopped one more time and enjoyed an ice cream, and then it was time to tackle Bordeaux. In all honesty, today's journey was quite challenging and navigating our way around Rennes and Nantes had taken a lot of concentration. We reached Bordeaux at about 4:30pm and skirted the city, thank goodness! All thoughts of driving in, parking and visiting this "Cité du Vin" were swiftly abandoned as I really didn't want to try and navigate around it again! Maybe we'll get the train instead!
Les Lèches
Once past Bordeaux, we turned onto the A89, which was a lot quieter and more scenic with forests on either side of the road. We'd paid a toll of 33 euros on the A10, and paid a small amount of just over 8 euros on this autoroute.
It wasn't long before we were turning off onto a country road towards Les Lèches, and then Jeeves told us to turn onto a steep track leading into the countryside. Ahead, we could see trees, and then we caught a glimpse of our home for the next ten days, Les Lèches!
I was glad to see lots of trees on the property, which would give shade to our car. We think the intense heat in Spain last year contributed to the breakdown shortly afterwards. We let ourselves in with the key code and explored! It's a gorgeous house, and once we had opened the shutters, we had fantastic views over forests with a steeple of a church peeping through the trees. We have three bedrooms (two en-suite), a spacious modern kitchen, an open-plan living and dining room, and a utility room. Outside is a wooden decked terrace and a pool. A large grassed area leads down to a boules pitch and a small play area for children. It has everything we need!
We spent a good hour unpacking the car and putting everything away, and I called Keith to let him know we had arrived. We then sat on the terrace with a drink and chatted about the journey and our plans for the next few days.
| Aperitifs by the pool |
We were both glad the journey was over, and we were delighted with the house. We felt very lucky to be in such a beautiful place.
Getting onto the wifi was easy, and our television has Netflix, so at least we can watch a couple of documentaries or films while we're here. Sophie prepared a dinner of pasta bake, and we opened a bottle of red wine to go with the meal. We ate outside, and the only fly in the ointment was a mosquito bite I received... I had opened a drawer in the kitchen, and it was full of mosquito repellents, so I had guessed anyway. Tomorrow we need to buy a spray and more candles to keep the little blighters away!
After eating, we watched the first episode of a Netflix drama called Unchosen. It was riveting! Now for a good night's sleep!