Road Trip - Days 16-17-18-19-20-21

09-16: Road Trip! We got an early enough start to make it to our Citadel Gin Tour at 11:30a. The roads were narrow most of the way until we got to the toll version of the trip. We were a little unsure about the toll but what you do is take a ticket and then at the end of the toll you scan your ticket and it tells you how much to pay. One can pay with cash, so we did that and received change. Along the way today we had the narrow roads I mentioned, farm equipment and at least 2 dozen traffic circles. It is amazing how GPS can be so accurate in these smaller, remote areas. Alas, we found the Citadel Gin place, but now where do we enter? If we had not seen a delivery person to ask, we would still be looking. They had one of their own work trucks parked in front of the entrance sign. Finally, we made it in only to discover we had booked the tour in French. That part was okay. However, where it said online, we could have a picnic lunch there, was not okay. They only do that as a special order, of course, we did not know that. It was a lovely place inside and the people were nice enough… but we decided to on for lunch in Cognac. We didn’t really want to taste gin on an empty stomach. They did say we could come back at 2p for the tour in English but the tickets weren’t much and we just decided to skip it. We drove to the heart of the City of Cognac and found a nice place for lunch outside just by the city center. A burger satisfied our hunger, but now what? Who wants to be in Cognac and not taste Cognac? We quickly looked on Get Your Guide and found a tour at Remy Martin Cognac starting in 30 minutes. It was a 10-minute drive, so we hurried to our car and got there with time to spare. I bought that on my phone as Stuart drove to the destination. The tour was interesting, but honestly, I don’t care for Cognac. It is very strong. Our tastes include a cocktail that had Cognac in it but still was refreshing and tasty. The actual Cognac tasting was a bit much. This is the area where cognac is made, it can only be called Cognac if is from this area. After that, we drove to our “room for the night” and settled in there. It was a nice room and only €40 for the 1 night, so a good deal that Stuart found on Airbnb. Later on, we ventured out and actually found a Pizza Place! We enjoyed our choices and shared ice cream after the pizza. We went back to our room, played Phase 10 and off to bed.

09-17-19: The rest of the road trip was a bit of a flop. We got to La Rochelle and found Casa Papilles for lunch. It was pretty good but our med/rare steak was almost raw. The wine and the desserts were good! On we went toward our destination. We were under the impression it was a beautiful place out on Ile de Ré. This is an island at the Atlantic Ocean and off the coast from La Rochelle. So, we drove there and the drive was nice most of the time I think Stuart said there were at least another two dozen roundabouts or traffic circle whatever you want to call them, and a handful of crazy drivers. We got a bit off track when arriving to our hotel but we finally found it. There are bicycles everywhere! This area is quite flat with a lot of ponds that are salt marches. There are trees in a few campgrounds where they have been planted. They seem to have a little café place also. We ate at such a place our first night and it didn’t set well with me. This is the extent we found for places to eat. We did have more of a restaurant near us, just a 15-minute walk. We at there on our last night. Stuart ate there a few times but I was back in our room with a touch of the flu for the 2 full days we were there. 

09-20: Now we are headed to Angouleme, where we have 1 night booked. As we left and headed toward home, we drove to the sea wall and saw the ocean and took a few photos. The drive was uneventful. In fact, we stopped at a restaurant in Rochefort called Cap Nell for a late lunch, it was quite delicious. We found our room for the night; it was ok but a little challenging. The older places are refurbished the best they can, but steps of 3 different sizes at each doorway can make navigating at night interesting. There was that but the bed was the worst we have experienced; quite the valley in the middle that one much attempt to climb out of, and also work at not rolling down into that valley all night long. Of course, we survived and headed out the next morning for Bourg. 

 09-21: It was a short drive back just 1.5 hours. We arrived in Bourg in time for lunch somewhere. It is Monday so a lot of things are closed. We thought to check Restaurant de Jéroboam and to our surprise it was open. We have been wanting to eat here but online it says it is closed for lunch. The waitress said they are open everyday for lunch! We each got a different Fixe Prixe from the daily menu. Stuart was more adventurous than I, he had the octopus and I had the chicken. Both were good. We also had a starter, Stuart’s was a paper wrapped shrimp in bisque, mine was a pork patty with thin sliced zucchini on top. Dessert was called Baba Cognac and it was good but way too much Cognac. The dish had a bread-like, large muffin soaked in Cognac with a spurt of whipped cream on the side. It could have fueled the next rocket to the moon it was so strong. We had some nice wine with this meal as well. That meal saw us through the rest of the day. Back at the apartment we unpacked, played 5 Crowns, and caught up on laptop items.