4th Dec – St. Sornin & Surrounds
Well it’s been just over a week that we’ve been in St. Sornin (Southwest France) and boy have we been busy. We’ve probably done about 800kms driving this week around the area and I have to say, without a car, you couldn’t see all the wonders we’ve seen. Petrol can be a hassle as none of the ‘self-service’ stations take Aussie credit cards, so we have to find old-fashioned serviced service stations, which can get you into trouble at times! We once got down to 20kms worth of petrol left in the tank (according to the system) and the nearest town was 35kms! Luckily we found a station just up the road. No-one back home can complain about the price of petrol rising, we’re paying up to 116 Euro cents ($2.25AUD) a litre for diesel!
There have been so many amazing places (architecture), churches, chateau, animals and even the odd Roman amphitheatre that it’s hard to start to describe them all. We even saw 2 fauns in our headlights, 6pm one evening on our own quiet road into St. Sornin. I’ll let the pictures make up our 10,000 words.
Saintes – 35 kms east
Roman Amphitheatre & city gate circa 20AD
Brouage - 20 kms north west
Part of the Brouage Citadel (15th century) wall still entirely intact with village inside the walls
Brouage roof tops and church
Rochefort – 25 kms north
Tam and some rope at La Corderie
La Rochelle – 60 kms north
City gate and tour de la chaine
Cognac & region – 60kms east
One of the Cognac chateaux and a Romanesque church
Vines at Cognac
Ile D’Oleron/ Marennes – 15 kms west
Citadel ramparts in Ile D'Oleron and street scene
Romanesque church near Ile D'Oleron
Our farmhouse – 200 yrs old in a hamlet of only 4 properties on the one way old farm path, 3 kms outside of the village called St. Sornin.
Our home for the month
We also have a ruin of an 11thC fortification only 500m away in the next hamlet.
Our next stop is down to Bilbao (Atlantic coast of Spain) via Bordeaux France for a 3-day jaunt to visit the Guggenheim, which we couldn’t get to 5yrs ago on our Spanish holiday.
There have been so many amazing places (architecture), churches, chateau, animals and even the odd Roman amphitheatre that it’s hard to start to describe them all. We even saw 2 fauns in our headlights, 6pm one evening on our own quiet road into St. Sornin. I’ll let the pictures make up our 10,000 words.
Saintes – 35 kms east
Roman Amphitheatre & city gate circa 20AD
Brouage - 20 kms north west
Part of the Brouage Citadel (15th century) wall still entirely intact with village inside the walls
Brouage roof tops and church
Rochefort – 25 kms north
Tam and some rope at La Corderie
La Rochelle – 60 kms north
City gate and tour de la chaine
Cognac & region – 60kms east
One of the Cognac chateaux and a Romanesque church
Vines at Cognac
Ile D’Oleron/ Marennes – 15 kms west
Citadel ramparts in Ile D'Oleron and street scene
Romanesque church near Ile D'Oleron
Our farmhouse – 200 yrs old in a hamlet of only 4 properties on the one way old farm path, 3 kms outside of the village called St. Sornin.
Our home for the month
We also have a ruin of an 11thC fortification only 500m away in the next hamlet.
Our next stop is down to Bilbao (Atlantic coast of Spain) via Bordeaux France for a 3-day jaunt to visit the Guggenheim, which we couldn’t get to 5yrs ago on our Spanish holiday.
posted by Most Liveable at 9:53 PM
4 Comments:
your farm house looks quaint the whole area looks very pretty. I did not know you were going to spain. check out some prices. Love Floss
Wow, amazing countryside and really nice photography - Tam it looked like you were being squeezed by an anaconda! Mark, you missed the poker night, I won Texas Hold'em with a nice run of lucky card combinations. Glad you are both well.
Iain
Photography is sensational!
Cognac mmmm - yes please!
the last comment was from me
D, K & Ethan
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