Kicking out time in Ibis is quite late (we believe) and of course we are long gone by that time, not hanging around for itsy bitsy hotel petit déjs. We head west this time to eventually skirt round Bergerac…… deviations from the true route here and there, although I could not tell you where we go off and come back on the straight and narrow. I just do as I'm told.
The Dordogne is a frustrating patch: we try village after village but not a sniff of a boulangerie or an open bar. We resignedly get back on route and hold out until Lalinde, where we are spoilt for choice as it is market day. Nippy though so we go inside. The croissants are fairly good, the coffee cracking and two extremely well filled baguettes are also secured (they are secured with green ribbons in fact). I quite fancy some of that choucroute pictured herewith for my elevenses but the idea is scotched before I am even able to suggest it. It looks a good market though but we can't linger longer in Lalinde: we are headed for the Gironde!
Thereafter every village and town seems to be throbbing with cafés. It is often the way of it. But between Sarlat and Lalinde coming west? Forget it. Chocolate box villages river cliff chateaux etc, beloved of the British of course … but I take no snaps of these things anymore. They cease to amuse, It's all on the interweb anyway.
It is a greyish morning so we are not up for lingering much in our former stamping grounds of the Bordeaux around St Emilion either. But we do stop briefly to stare forlornly at the Côte de Francs Cooperative, now derelict and unloved, where we bought some of the best bidon sauce we've ever washed our taste buds with, when the son-and-heir was still knee high to a grasshopper. We've still got that customised bidon somewhere. You won't find Port des Callonges on our route back either. Mme Melling sends us off down the local D23 from St Cires-sur-Gironde (p219 in your Michelin) to get to a suitable spot to work our way through the baguette of the day……
…… and so, by diverse ways and motorial means we proceed, over familiar estuarine roads, stopping only to take tea (or what a Fr café seemingly can't do to a tea bag, which is to add freshly boiling water to it, preferring instead to provide said TB in a cup together with a small tea pot of fairly hot or heated water of unknown vintage, and let you do the business, doomed to only partial success of course as the water should be bally well boiling when it hits the tea fgs) at St-Georges-de-Didonne, as this mini cruise liner trundles past going up river. Past a shadowy Cordouan aussi, got to get a lighthouse ref. in somewhere!
From St-G-de-D, a few more kilometres bring us to our destination town for the day, namely:
Well, we fancied a change from La Rochelle, we like the feel of Rochefort, get a kick from its historical significance, the naval connections and that… and there used to be a dashed good créperie, very small, down one of the grander 18C streets, will it still be in business? Yes yes here it is … Mary quickly phones from outside its entrance door and books a table, so we get the last two covers and that is supper sorted. Changed hands of course, this former family pancake shop, but still very choice, friendly – while the cidre bouché is like the nectar of the gods after so much wine with everything, quite the best cider in space.
While waiting to get into the said establishment, at 1900 hours prompt, when it opens to the public, we remind ourselves just why we are fond of this grid pattern town. It has some of the finest river mud known to man, it is where I saw my first ever Héron & Héron lighthouse poster, slowly fading in a shut shop window one hot summer's day, back in the mists of T. Excellent marine book shop, all the French navy stuff, La Corderie Royale, classic stately houses, the transporter bridge, home port and building site of L'Hermione (not at home this time – when it is, it parks up in the basin illustrated left, currently sporting some epic mud). Have made many visits over the years of course, to jolly old Rochefort, so I rather fell down on image capture this time round, I have to own, I gave it a miss again mostly, but you've got to be impressed by the drying mud in Hermione's dry docks – it was quite wondrous. …… Not your thing, mud……dry or otherwise……?
Oh well, it takes all sorts I suppose. On this day, day two, we cover 209 of our none metric miles, from Sarlat to Rochefort and it turns out nice in the late afternoon. Garage parking too: – another of those impossibly narrow entrances but yours truly leaves no paint on the stonework, thankfully: I have an inch at least to spare either side.
As she retires, Mme Melling is a little non-plussed to note an oversized 'smudge' on the wall of our hotel room of what appears to be a naked man possibly seated on the WC. 'Art' I think – in the mode of Rodin's 'Thinker' perhaps (although he'd be turning in his G if he knew that hotels are putting this sort of rendition in their hotel bedrooms these days). An unhappy image, it would be an 'E' at best (unsatisfactory, fail even) in any self respecting fine art class of which there are few. Or not. Maybe I am wide of the mark. Those fingers… What? and the fellow seems to have a hoof rather than a right hand. I wonder just how many Ibis hotel rooms this apparition graces? Rather too many I warrant. Rochefort gives us a very quiet night and we are awoken by a most tuneful blackbird. First time in this hotel for us. Not living it up on the ring road anymore, blow the budget……
