Having learned that the “pig and duck” farm down
the road has a little shop which is open on the weekends, we thought we would
take advantage of it. We had a lovely
walk there, with Tim choosing tho run home and Luke skipping nearly all the
way. We bought a dozen free range eggs
(3 Euro) and were tempted by a fresh chicken, duck or guinea fowl but in the end
just came away with the eggs. I could
get used to living in rural France! We
said “bon jour” to the friendly pig, as well, who doesn’t realise his fate to
become bacon, ham and saucisson at some stage.
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| Daisy and bug |
Country walks are always walks of discovery and
this time we did see a few new insects but the highlight was a couple of horse
drawn carriages!
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| So would have liked to join these folk! |
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| More "Miniscule" |
We like to have some day trips of discoveries and it is even better when
we can fit shopping and ordinary necessaries around adventures. Today's
target was St Junien, a big town about 22 kms from
here.
After we had explored the Hyper U –
supermarket – there, and had a wonderful time doing so, went back down to the
Vienne River for our lunch.
It was one
of those cobbled together, slightly wicked but very delicious lunches of potato
wedges, chicken drumsticks and a selection of eclairs and croissants.
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| Luke posting Pepper's birthday postcard! |
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| Karl checking out kegs of beer! |
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| Walking by the Vienne, St Junien |
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| The Vienne River |
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| Old arch... |
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| No-one fell in today! |
We walked along the river path for a short way
until the path petered out and we followed the road past some fairly
derelict buildings which were possibly old factories.
The road was looking fairly uninteresting but
Tim was eager to continue for a bit and we did!
Yeah for Tim!
We walked under
what looked like an ancient arch to once again view the river….and a hydropower
station…and a nicely renovated water mill building which was a second hand/boutique
shop…and Les Terrasses de Saint-Amand!
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| Moulin de Tintin |
We had a brief look at both the hydro power
station and the water mill but it was the terraces and the old abbey which
really caught our eyes!
A steep climb,
reminiscent of our days in Turkey, led us to an open gate and a few signs so we
ventured in!
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| Les Terrasses de Saint-Amand |
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| View from the Moulin |
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| Inside the abbey |
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| Looking across the river from the abbey |
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| Stairs leading to nowhere in particular... |
There is a devotional fountain there which was
visited by Celts who believed in its healing powers. From what I could glean the construction of
the church there began in 1083 on the ancient relics on what was originally
founded in 6 th Century. It is a tourist
attraction waiting to happen and well worth wandering through. There were even very clean public toilets
there but no signage.
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| Chapelle Notre Dame du Pont, St Junien |
We wandered back along some different streets to
our car. We had hoped to go into the
delightful looking Chapelle Notre Dame du Pont but it was closed.
Back to Videix and a most beautiful evening. Our hosts had told us about a local bird hide on the lake. We drove along the narrow roads, some so narrow that it appeared as if the edges of the buildings had had to be modified to actually let cars through!
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| Narrow roads around here.... |
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| Just follow the sign over the grass, over the mole hills and by he lake |
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| Reflections.... |
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| Bird hide |
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| View from the bird hide |
It wasn't surprising with our noisy crew that we didn't see any unusual birds but it was fun to walk to the hide. We did see some huge looking fish jumping and wondered what they were. The lakeside twitterings were gentle and lovely and the lake itself was peaceful with concentric circles working their way to the bank from fish and insect activity.
Another lovely day :)
ReplyDeleteFeeling very blessed
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