We made an early start today as we’re all packed and ready to go - to be honest we’d left most of our stuff in Kiki after our last trip. First stop was Lidl in Chalais for some peppers which Emma forgot during our weekly shop on Friday.
Next we drove the short distance to the weighbridge in Chalais which I spotted when I took Kiki for her CT. It’s useful to know your total weight and each axel weight so you can work out the correct tyre pressures.
Settling off again we’re heading to Saintes, which is a medieval city on the edge of the Charonte river. We stopped en-route for coffee - Emma had remembered my “special” coffee maker this time!
Arriving in Saintes, we headed for LeClerc which according to Park4night has a large car park. Unfortunately, it turned out the car park wasn’t that big and was quite full so we couldn’t stop there. We had just passed some motorhomes in a large carpark so we retraced our route back to there. We found the entrance but also a 2m height barrier so, as we didn’t want to loose our bedroom, we bottled out. We drove on wondering how the other motorhomes had got in as they were all as tall as Kiki and still had their bedrooms attached.... In desperation we returned to the height barrier and Emma tried to swing it open - it was locked. However, there was just enough room to squeeze past the side of the barrier, across the grass and into the parking area.
We walked into the city, crossing a footbridge over the river. This is a fairly typical old town in this region with white limestone buildings and old narrow shopping streets. For centuries this was the only crossing place of the lower Charante and a popular place for pilgrims on the Santiago route.
We followed the signs to the Roman Amphitheatre, which although closed was easily visible through the fence. This was quite an impressive structure, surrounded by a high stone wall with huge archways over the entrances.
We returned to Kiki for lunch and afterwards exited the car park over the grass, once again avoiding the height barrier.
A short distance to the north is the disused quarry of Lapidiales. Rather surprisingly, this now contains some quirky sculptures which have been created over the years by local artists. The most impressive sculptures were carved into the original quarry walls. There are all sorts of mystical creatures - our favourite was a “Temple of Doom” style structure with a huge skull which suddenly appears in front of you as you descend into the quarry.
Returning to Kiki we continued onwards to the tiny village of Saint Romain de Benet where we’re going to stop tonight in their Aire de Camping Car.
We parked up and took a walk around the village - it didn’t take long. The huge twin domes of the church, which also has a tower are most imposing - fortunately there doesn’t seem to be a bell to keep us a awake tonight! Just outside the village we came across a large stream which was flowing up out of the ground - a natural spring. We returned to Kiki and spent a couple of hours reading outside in the sun before our evening meal and settling down for the evening.
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