Saint-Loup-du-Gast

 Thursday 29/09/22

We woke up to a lovely morning so decided to head off for a walk around the village before breakfast.  The church bells chime loudly at 0700 and, as we are still on Portuguese / UK time, it feels like 0600, so there is no chance of sleeping late.  

We haven't really acclimatised to the cooler weather yet and should probably have dressed a little warmer, however it was a fantastic time to be out an about.

The perfect morning for a walk.

We are really taken by Vivonne and the surrounding area.  Many of these villages  put so much effort into their appearance and facilities; it makes visiting them a absolute pleasure!

A rather clever rail for pushing bikes up and down the steps

It wasn't too long and it was time to head off again, quite a lot of cross country driving as many of the freeways here are toll roads but it really is worth it to go off the beaten track.  

We had a lovely coffee break at a picnic aire along the road but our lunch stop was a little less inspiring - a supermarket car park 😆.  All the roadside parking we saw around lunchtime were a little close to the main road and we hate being buffeted by trucks as we take a break.

Typical picnic spots along the way

As we approached our destination we found ourselves more and more off the beaten track, eventually travelling down a single lane farm road for about 2km - I probably should have checked the route more carefully!  It was fine as we encountered no other traffic.

A pretty village, the name's a mouthful, though!

Memorial to the fallen villagers in WWII

We've done almost 2,000km now and are fairly close to our final stop before we catch the ferry on Saturday morning.  Even though we could technically still stay in the EU for 10 days, we need to get back so that we can re-enter early in the new year.  Besides, with the current (de-)value of the Pound, I am happy to stop spending Euros for a while!