Day 32: Ste Maure to Chatellerault

September 27, 2023

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We really enjoyed our spot in the 18th century building housing the Aquarelle BnB, and we enjoyed talking to Jean Luc who with Natalie is the owner. Jean Luc came up with a ham and cheese plate at breakfast, and this included some genuine Ste Maure cheese. Ste Maure is an AOP (Appellation d'origine protégée ) which means it must be produced within the region, according to specified standards. It seems this can be more strict than our "certified organic" back home. Jean Luc says he generally will not buy AOP Ste Maure because the goats are never allowed outside, for fear they may eat something unapproved and put off the specific AOP flavour. Now that is really stupid! Anyway, Jean Luc buys "Bio" (organic ) instead, because with that standard the goats have to go outside!

In general I say I don't like goat cheese, because it reminds me of the stinky bucks. But this Ste Maure was really nice, and consequently I was praising it as we rode today. Dodie responded by coming out of a Monoprix with a giant container of goat cheese. We'll see!

Cheese and ham. The round Ste Maure is in the centre. It is coated in ashes, and the hole is from the straw that had the producers' name printed on it.

This was our street in Ste Maure. It does not look like much, but the houses (our house anyway) are nice inside and have large gardens behind.

Just down the street was a house, also rather undistinguished, except that it had a detailed info plaque in front of it, as did many of the buildings in the vicinity.

This is called the Maison d'Estouteville. It was the residence of the lord of the town in the 15th century.

This is the La Belle Image inn, also from the 15th century. It was a stopping place for Camino pilgrims, and its motto was "good wine, good lodgings". Depending on your screen, you can make this out in the photo: "Bon vin, bon logis". It is said this place already existed in the 12th century. It only went out of business recently.

See the Coquille St Jacques above the portal of the Belle Image.

Perhaps as a demonstration that it does not pay to be greedy, as we were looking at the Belle Image I diverted my attention for a couple of seconds to snap a plaque with one extra explanation- that of the St Jacques pilgrimage. That snap turned out to be costly, because when I looked up, Dodie was nowhere to be seen. She is known to take off just before some kind of stop is fully over, because she knows I will quickly catch her. But we also have (or thought we had) some protocols, like "don't turn a corner without the other person in sight". That fell apart this time, as within 30 meters the road ended in a left/right turn choice. I looked both ways and saw no Dodie!

Might as well read that St Jacques story before the thrilling tale of what happened to us next.

So there I was at the fork in the streets, shown below. Now a word about Ste Maure, or at least the old part, where we were. It's an absolute medieval rabbit warren, and all streets are one way. If you get lost in there, it will be a while before you ever escape. To have Dodie and me both swarming around looking for each other could never work. So I implemented protocol #2, which is if I am ever lost I need to say put, and stay where Dodie last saw me. I did that, and expected to see Dodie re-appearing at any moment. But no. Minutes went by. Ten minutes, twenty minutes! What should I do?

Fortunately a lady approached, from the right hand side of the fork, and I asked her if she had seen someone dressed like me. "Yes, up there". So I took off and cycled for a few nerve wracking moments, until yes, I spotted Dodie's bike, with Dodie not far away, scouting around.

Quite without resolving any "legal" disputes about what had happened to protocols one and two, we looked at #3: phone each other. Dodie had tried #3, but there was a slight glitch. In the last day our main phone had died. It's USB C charging port simply would not connect, worn out maybe. So we shuffled phones and SIMs, but now the phone in my bag was one the phone in Dodie's bag had never heard of. Tonight, we'll fix that!

One direction that does work in old Ste Maure is "up". The old town is built on a hill, and if you go up you reach, of course, the Chateau. This was built in 990 a.d. but it seems its big claim to fame came in 1661, when "Louis XIV slept here", at least according to posters on the wall. There is also a poster for Louis' right hand man d'Artagnan. d'Artagnan figures in the Alexander Dumas novel The Three Musketeers, but he was an actual figure, who did accompany Louis around the country.

We did find our way down, and set off eventually all along the Vienne river, and on usually small and calm roads. We have found the various river tracks really nice in the last days and are talking about coming back just to enjoy these routes again.

One of the first things we did encounter was a machine that to me looked rather insect like at the back, with some cables and arms moving about. It turned out t be part of a truck with an operator that was spraying tar coated gravel onto the roadway. It took some time to get his attention, to help us avoid getting tarred as well!

As we continued, we engaged in our favourite activity of looking at the roadside crops. Something that puzzles us each day is the fact that most sunflowers and most corn is dead and dry but not harvested yet. What are they waiting for? Plus, we would really like to see how the sunflowers are handled. We have a big interest in sunflower seed, since we use so much feeding birds by our house.

This is just the latest of several rivers the route has followed of late.

We were still talking about the AOC cheese of this region, and were interested to see the traces of the local producers.

In Dange St Romain we encountered a small cheese factory, with a nearby sign indicating that its origins are in the late 19th century. The dairy industry here started when the phylloxera virus almost wiped out the wine industry.

Approaching now Chatellerault we came to some signs describing the nearby island in the river as a good birding location, mentioning cormorants, herons, and the one we could not spot, the Kingfisher.

The next signage about Chatellerault was really complex, and had me grateful that our Grade X Canadian history teacher, Mr. Kent, is probably no longer around. As "everybody knows" the British defeated the French at Quebec City in 1759, and took over the region, which was then called Lower Canada. Further west in Ontario (Upper Canada) I think maybe the British had an earlier foothold. But to the east of Quebec there was what is now Nova Scotia, or then, Acadia. In Acadia there were lots of French people. When these declined to swear allegiance to the British Crown, they were literally kicked out, their homes and farms burned. That was 1775. The Acadians dispersed throughout the French empire, including France itself. Famously, many eventually landed in Louisiana, becoming the well known Cajuns. Ok, we got that. But now, on the banks of the Vienne we learned, I think, that lots of Acadians came in through La Rochelle and ended up here, by order of Louis XV. That seemed to be 1772-74. However, by 1776 they relocated to near Nantes, and finally moved again by 1785 to Louisiana.

Strange to think that whichever municipal authority manages the river bank here not only knows this stuff but thinks the public will read it. The signage includes detailed maps of how people moved around within Nova Scotia, before departing from Halifax. History is very alive in Europe, Mr. Kent.

The bridge over the Vienne to Chatellerault

Here in Chatellerault, a fisherman seems to be in luck, with a fish soon to be on hook. Too bad they are all trees!

The main street in Chatellerault is a broad space with much parking in the centre and shops along both sides. It seemed a very open and convenient layout, so different from the cramped medieval streets.

But smaller streets are more picturesque.

After the Canadian history lesson, we also spotted this.

On the path leading to our Ibis hotel, we encountered this school group. As we walked the bikes along the line of kids, I said "Bonjour" to each, one by one. My result is that I got "Bonjour" back from 50%. The others just stared at me like I was from Mars. We think these kids were 10-12 year olds, almost teenagers. Response rate from 6 year olds would probably have been closer to 100%.

From downtown to our hotel:

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Our Ibis hotel here is a "real" one and not an Ibis Budget. But frankly the room is not much bigger and the number of electrical outlets not that many greater. However we did buy into their breakfast, so we'll see about that. Most importantly our bikes have a nice place to spend the night, and we can go visit them any time!

Today's ride: 55 km (34 miles)
Total: 1,753 km (1,089 miles)

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Kathleen ClassenI crave goats cheese and Keith shares your opinion. He is slowly, slowly coming around as I introduce him to mild ones.
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7 months ago

Jacquie GaudetInteresting about the history signs. I don’t recall hearing about the expulsion of the Acadians in high school but did learn about it in a magazine article around 1974, which I used as the basis for a report. It was also around that time I learned that my family background on my father’s side was Acadian. Our family left France through La Rochelle but fled to PEI during the Expulsion.
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6 months ago

Steve Miller/GrampiesTo Jacquie GaudetCanadian history generally seemed pretty tame and straightforward to us growing up. Now, as we are getting older, and hopefully wiser, we are realizing that there are interconnections and undercurrents that we never knew about.
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6 months ago