Camino v3 - Day 4: Poitiers to Charroux (62km)

I've been observing the gradual change in housing construction as I head south, although it's impossible to say exactly where the changes occur. The change is most obvious in the roof cover which has gone from grey slates to terracotta tiles, first a relatively flat profile like the slates but soon in the typical Spanish half round profile. It's one of the special things about travelling through a European country; how localised things are. Houses have traditionally been made from local materials (for example brick in the north and stone in the south) and modern construction tends to honour the traditional style of the region.

The Abbey at Nouailé-Maupertuis

While I'm at the Abbey in Nouailé-Maupertuis (why are so many place names in France long and hyphenated?) I receive a phone call from my internet provider to apologise for their technician having, yet again, come to our house and leaving again without even checking whether anyone was home. And without actually doing anything to get the telephone service working again. It's an odd approach; you travel all the way to your job site, and then do nothing. Twice. Presumably he is invoicing the time and travel and I know he's claiming to find nobody home each time. A clear rort and very frustrating.

Mini-Versailles

The town of Nieuil-l'Espoir (yet another hyphenated name) has a wide tree-lined avenue as you arrive; it looks a bit like a mini-Versailles, reminding me of the Avenue de Paris with its beautiful old trees.

Best of British - in France

At Gençay the market is in full swing, so I take a break and look around. The indoor fish market is full of people, a bit of a surprise in this little town. Walking around the square I notice some quite unusual decorations on buildings, a bit alternative. Then I spot an "English Tea Room" which really is unexpected. This is clearly not your standard small French country town. I had been planning on a coffee stop, but then think that perhaps some decent tea might be a better alternative to awful coffee. Going inside is like being transported to a quaint little shop in the English countryside, complete with lots of white-haired people speaking English. I order my tea, which arrives in a pot, with milk.

Windmills and Sunflowers

I stop for the day at Charroux. It seems to be majority English-speaking; clearly I've ridden into a bit of an English enclave in this part of France. Even the locals speak English; I guess they realise they have to since none of the English seem to speak much French. I am later to discover this is not quite a true statement when I'm sitting outside the bar - run by an Irishman - and I hear that at the table next to me, where there's a big group, some of the English are in fact speaking French.

How many feet have walked on these stones I wonder

Later I discuss the fact that so much English is spoken in the village with the owner of the restaurant where I have dinner. She says that now at least a third of the inhabitants are English and that it is causing some friction as the English are not really making an attempt at integrating.

In the evening a food van sets up outside the Tourist office, where I'm sitting on a park bench surfing on their Internet. I watch them setting up the van and I'm thinking, if that's a pizza van I'm having pizza tonight. There's a steady stream of customers, who obviously know this van. Turns out the van is run by an English couple and the customers are all local English people. They are selling hamburgers, not pizzas. No pizza for dinner then.

The Halte Jacquaire in Charroux

I'm staying at the Halte Jacquaire. It's in a restored old maison à colombages, perfect for a pilgrim refuge. The woman who looks after the place (you collect the key at the local bar) comes by to check if everything is OK. Apparently, last year, not that long after the local community bought and restored the building to encourage people on the Chemin de Compostelle to stop in the village, the powers that be decided to change the route of the Chemin and it now bypasses the village. I had already noticed that virtually all the entries in the visitor's book were Dutch cyclists (I am using the Dutch cyclists guide, which mentions this village). So I guess the French walkers are staying somewhere else nowadays, which is a shame since this is actually a pretty well-equipped and nicely-prepared place.

At the local restaurant, which is quite impressive in the old style, there is only one table occupied when I arrive. It's a party of three, and they are English. Locals, as I later discover. I am the only other diner for the evening. Beats me how these places can survive, especially as they offer quite an impressive menu selection. The food, and the wine - even by the glass -was really very good. But the owners are thinking of selling up and retiring. Already they've given up on the hotel part of the business, and if the restaurant is so poorly frequented then it's no wonder they are thinking of moving on. Who will buy a place like this? Perhaps an English couple.

The bustling restaurant in Charroux

Tomorrow it's going to be interesting to find a place to stay; the route goes through a region with little in the way of significant towns or villages and there are no pilgrim stops or hotels on the route, which is a little odd to say the least.