The high plateau end of Angoulême is one of our favourite places to wander around ... the ancient, irregular and slippery stone and cobbled streets of the old town criss-cross and offer absolutely no obvious reference points, so we two Australians have an almost 100% hit rate of getting ourselves lost on each visit.  The narrow streets and alleys of the Angoulême plateau are sometimes dank, empty and a little grubby, but other times they are thriving with students and other pedestrians as the stroll around the muralled walls of the ancient lanes.   

The precinct offers a feast of various cuisines from around the world, served from dozens of little restaurants in this "petit coin d'Angoulême".  There's our favourite creperie, Crêpes par Faim, where you can sit in the laneway, out on the back terrace or down in the vaulted basement.  Or perhaps Jardin de Kashmir or Siam Gourmet if you prefer Asian cuisine, or  Restaurant Le St André if you want something a little fancy ... or the newer Le Lion Rouge for an Italian meal in a fantastic architectural delight.  Or walk down to Les Halles, Angoulême's indoor marketplace, for something fresh and "au comptoir".  The choice is rich.

In the summer of 2019 we came upon a new little book store during on one of our meanderings.  Browsing through the new book shop we are drawn to the collection of books on the local Charente region.  We have a number of books with beautiful photographs of the local area and its landmarks in our house.  We noticed a new coffee table book (un beau-livre) on the Charente region.  The book is titled "Charente", by Stéphane Charbeau and was published just the previous month (May, 2019).

Every French village, town and hamlet has a road-side sign that announces its name as you drive into it (and then again, as you leave it - the exception being that there is a red diagonal line through the name of the location). 
Over the last month or so we have been noticing many, many of these village signs have been turned upside down.  A freak of nature? A nation-wide prank?  Vandalism?  Dysphasic sign writers?
Everywhere we have been recently, we are seeing these upside down signs!  Whether it be in our local Charente area, or in Deux-Sevres, Vienne, the Dordogne, or even down south where we were recently in Aude, Hérault of Gard. 

Well, after some investigation, it seems that this phenomena is really a quirky protest of young french farmers!

According to John Lichfield of The Local (7 December 2023, [email protected]), this is part of an agricultural "rebellion of the signs" which started in the Gard in the south of France and is now spreading across the country.  It is a campaign design by the French young farmers association, Jeunes Agriculteurs, around a long menu list of grievances.

These consist of:
1. Farmers paying increased licence fees of 47 million euros in 2024 for pumping water from the ground and for pumping pesticides etc into it (the government has now cut this requirement);
2. A proposed EU treaty with South America that would bring cheap Brazilian and Argentinian beef into France;
3. The rising price of agricultural diesel fuel and delays in the payment of EU subsidies
4. No clear national strategy for balancing the needs of farming with an ecologically friendly future.

And so, this peaceful, attention-grabbing campaign has commenced to promote the grievances of young farmers - "Nous marchons sur la tête." (We are walking on our heads).

-Everything was totally under control with the preparations for closing up house smoothly completed. Hire car washed, house cleaned, linens changed, fridge emptied, heating system repaired, rubbished and recyclables bagged and placed in the street, suitcases carefully packed, fav airport hotel booked due to the early departure the next morning. Even time for a final stroll around the streets of old Angoulême and a café crême and croissant before dropping off the hire car and crossing the road to the station. We were both a little smugly self-satisfied that there was no last minute dash - as has occurred on occasions in the past.

The TGV was on time and we ensconced ourselves on board. First station - Poitiers. About one and a half hours after boarding at Angoulême, the city of Tours marked the half way mark to Paris. Less than 5 minutes before stopping at Tours, for some reason I sensed something was wrong, plus the need to check for my passport. Immediately I realised that my passport was still safely in the house in Verteuil…… oops.  Don said I suddenly turned very pale, which is probably fairly accurate as I couldn’t believe how I could have neglected to think about ensuring I had my key to travelling home .... I had no idea how this was going to turn out.

The train stopped and I jumped off the train with my suitcase, but without a firm plan on how I was going to get back to Angoulême, and then Verteuil, and then back to the CDG airport in Paris by early the next morning. It was three pm and already it was flashing across my mind that there weren’t many options.

Wrestling with my heavy suitcase out of the Tours station, I looked for an Avis car rental office across the road, with a view to potentially driving back to Verteuil and then retracing my steps and then onto Paris and the airport. I entered, and was firmly told “no cars monsieur, impossible”.

Next option, quickly back to the station to check out the train schedule back to Angoulême and it was fortunate that one was arriving in about 15 minutes. Grabbed a ticket and by 3.20, not believing my luck that a TGV was heading in the right direction, was on a train back to Angoulême, a couple of hundred kilometres away but still with no concrete plan about what to do when I got back there.

Using the wifi I managed to find out that the only train back to Paris that day was at 5.36pm and I still had to work out how to get the passport in Verteuil, which is about 35 km from Angoulême.

We have friends in a neighbouring village to us and I was able to contact Maria on messenger - she agreed to drop everything, and along with Björn, drive to Verteuil to collect my passport and then drive down to Angoulême to deliver my passport to me. What a relief to have such good friends who were willing to help me get out of a pretty awful predicament!

So I arrived back in Angoulême, Maria and Björn did the passport drop, and I procured a ticket and seat on the day’s last TGV to Paris - all in about a thirty minute turnaround.
So fortunate that the train schedules were working in my favour today, and so grateful for amazing friends such as Maria and Björn.
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Don has firmly said that from now on, he will be taking on passport duty. At least he’ll have the pleasure of my company on the flight tomorrow morning!

Angouleme is also well known for its collection of colourful wall frescos, or murales, painted onto building walls across the city and some of its inner suburban areas.
In July, we followed a self-guided walk that explores these murales.  You can follow the "hard-copy map from the Tourism Office, or download the app "Murs bd Angoulême".

One of our favourite past times in Angoulême is to wander the old town and its seemingly haphazard, rickety old paved streets.  We always seem to get lost.  There are plenty of lovely shops and restaurants - including our favourite creperie.  Walking along the old ramparts around the old town also allows for lovely views out over the Charentais department.

A young Australian guy moved to Europe and eventually to Paris where he has now lived for five years.  Two or three years ago he started up a podcast which I happened to stumble across, and have been following since. He married a Swedish girl, and for their honeymoon, they both hopped on his red scooter and "scootered" around France in the shape of a heart at the top speed of 50km/hr.  
Oliver and Lina spent a week in Verteuil, and subsequently received a mention in his book that he has just published, "Paris on Air - a memoir", by Oliver Gee.

"I really, really enjoyed this book!  Oliver Gee’s first book is a refreshing, romping read of his first five years living in Paris. It’s a love story – falling in love with this city, his new podcast, the lovely Lina, and of course, the Alp Slayer (affectionately known as the Red Beast). 
This is the perfect book for every wannabe Parisian, one of the best of its genre that I’ve read.  By the time I turned the final page, I felt that I had been educated (I now know what the dot in the letter “i” is called), I learnt a couple of French words I truly hope never to use (for example, défenestrer), empathised with Oliver on some truly awful French lessons he experienced during his early times in Paris, and relived some of his lovely and zany podcast episodes from the last couple of years.  Oliver brings Paris and France to life through his words and experiences – I didn’t want the pages to end.
Five stars for a truly delightful, well written book that I am sure I will pick up again and again over the years".

Going to a grocery store is always a buzz in another country, and France is no different.  Lots of different products, choice, and variations on a theme when compared to products available at home in Australia. 

Whether it be E.Leclerc, Intermarché, Géant Casino, Carrefour, Super-U, Auchan or Lidl, it is always an enjoyable and stimulating experience.  Grocery shopping is one of our enjoyable outings in France- is that sad?  A mini cultural experience.​

There are quite a few differences to the chains found in Australia.  So what are some of them?  What are the traps for new learners?  How to avoid embarrassment?  What to be aware of?  Here are some tips that, from experience, might be useful .....
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11.  Opening hours.  Always a little confusing as they vary according to the retailer and to the time of the year (and then there is always the “fermature exceptionelle” when places seem to close just for the heck of it).  ​

​Last week we had our first interaction with the French police.  My daughter, Bronte, had her mobile phone stolen while we were in the old town of Strasbourg, in eastern France.  Fifteen seconds inattention on our part while swapping phones to take some photos, and it was gone.  To cut a long story short, when we realized it wasn’t going to turn up, we approached one of the multiple teams of police who were ever-present, patrolling the area, always in groups of four, with automatic weapons, always foreign and unsettling for us.  They suggested making a report at the police station and gave us directions how to get there by tram.  Off we went and eventually found the Hôtel de Police.
At the Hôtel de Police, visitors had to wait outside in the winter cold and were brought into the foyer one-by-one to have their pockets emptied, bags checked and then patted down.  Then we had to tell our story at the front desk, before being asked to sit in the waiting area.  Eventually, we were taken into an interview room where we spoke to a young police woman, from Paris, new to Strasbourg.  She was very polite, rattled off a series of questions, and everything was keyed into her computer.  There seemed to be a lot of typing going on for the minimal amount of input we were giving.  At the end of the 25 minute session, we were given a copy of a multi-page statement/report, each page signed by Bronte.  It will be interesting to see what we have to go through with the insurance company once we return to Australia and how they deal with police reports in non-English languages.
 
Overall, I couldn’t complain about the interactions with the French police on these occasions – serious but polite and courteous, reasonable, helpful.

 
​Aubeterre-sur-Dronne to Brantôme (56km, 52min)
Another 50 km to the east is Brantôme, a beautiful riverside village on the Dronne river in the north of the department of the Dordogne. Brantôme is always on our list of places to visit and we have been here 4 or 5 times - it never fails to impress.  The town has a beautiful mixture of medieval and renaissance architecture to admire.  The Benedictine abbey on the banks of the river is superb and the old stone bridge and the beautiful mill have been transformed into a hotel and restaurant.  The abbey was originally built by Charlemagne in 769 and there is a  troglodytic section behind the abbey built into the cliffs.  We managed to make a reservation at the restaurant, Le Moulin de L'Abbeye, which unbeknown to us, earnt a Michelin star in February this year.  A great way to celebrate the birthdays of two in our group.  We enjoyed a great meal on the mill terrace with attentive service and food that was a visual treat, all the while watching  the ducks and ducklings on the river and the canoes riding down the shuttes of the weir, on their way down the river.

 
Sarlat to Conques (131km, 2hrs 11min)

Flights of steps ascend from the lower town to the churches, a group of massive buildings half-way up the cliff. The chief of them is the pilgrimage church of Notre Dame, containing  a wooden Black Madonna reputed to have been carved by Saint Amator (Amadour). ​