Mirabeau is weird

One of the odd things about France is how a lot of places are closed on Wednesdays. Even odder is how places that are supposed to be open on Wednesdays are inexplicably closed on a Wednesday. Like the Salon de The at Fontevraud.

Yesterday we had a lovely coffee and croissant there before going into the abbey. We figured breakfast this morning at Fontevraud would be the perfect way to start the day. We set off nice and early…yeah, right…we slept in and set off at about 10am. We pulled into the car park at Fontevraud at about 10:10am.

The Salon de The was closed. Inexplicably. The sign on the door claimed it was open. It was not. we walked back to the car and set off south, wondering how anyone made a living in France.

We drove on through the most beautiful countryside, on lovely smooth roads, arrow straight and with only a trickle of traffic. The perfect way to travel.

We wound up at a place called Mirabeau. We only stopped because we noticed a bar open on the main road and my need for a coffee was pretty obvious. We pulled into a side road and parked the car. As we opened the doors, we were assailed by a French woman, yelling at us in French. We looked around, worried we’d parked on her cat or something but there was no-one anywhere.

We walked across the road and she started again, followed by music. We looked up. A pair of speakers were fixed to the wall of the building behind us and her voice would come out of them at regular intervals. We had no idea what she was saying but figured the locals would be annoyed by it.

We realised that the centre of town was actually further down the road we’d parked on so we jumped back into the car and drove further down, to where the shops started.

We spotted a restaurant which looked a likely contender for breakfast (it was more like lunchtime by now) if we fancied cous cous but I noticed the people starting to move further down the road and decided to investigate.

All the way we were being continually harangued by either the woman or her strange choice of music as it bounced off the walls. Finally we arrived at the centre of town. Wednesday in Mirabeau is market day so a whole load of stalls selling fruit and veg, meat, cheese, bread and cakes and other produce you generally find at French markets were set up in what is generally, a car park.

There was also a bar/Tabac/PMU open on the square. We went in and inquired about food. The woman behind the counter suggested we visit the patisserie and get some bread. It’s important to remember that we are in deepest, darkest France where no-one but us speaks English and Mirinda’s French, though better than mine is still not what you’d call fluent.

So we wandered across the square and into a little patisserie in order to buy a croissant and a loaf of bread. The woman who runs this patisserie was insane. We asked for a croissant, an orange juice and a French loaf which was sitting by her till. Mirinda was holding the orange juice.

The woman said an amount which meant nothing to us and rung it up on her till where we could see it. I gave her some money. We were about to leave when Mirinda asked her what about the bread. The woman said something in French, almost bashing herself on the head in admonition. She also explained that she’d not charged for the bread. She rang up another amount which we then paid her.

Mirinda, making sure the woman had it all correct now, held up everything. The woman suddenly reacted at the orange juice. It seems she’d forgotten to include that as well. We paid for a third time before almost running out of the shop in case she charged us for the air.

We sat on a bench eating our breakfast and watched the old people with their shopping baskets shuffle between stalls. Eventually we went over to the Bar/Tabac/PMU for a coffee. While Mirinda went to the loo, pushing through the scores of old men playing bingo, I managed to attract the attention of the strange man/woman bar person and ordered coffee. It tasted fantastic.

All the time we’d been in Mirabeau, the announcements and music didn’t stop. It was like being constantly on a South West Trains journey into Waterloo. It was very, very odd. Eventually we left, back to the car, bemused. It was a very strange place.

Our next stop wasn’t so strange.

When I worked out where we’d stop for lunch I’d used the tried and true method of roughly working out halfway and then picking a place I quite liked the name of. I did this a few days ago and came up with Angouleme. Things didn’t look too good as we followed the signs to the centre of town. Linda had a river quite close so we (sort of) moved in that direction.

We were sitting in traffic behind a temporary traffic light when I suggested we turn left, basically so we could turn around and head back to the grotty town centre we’d spotted as we quickly drove by. Running down the side of the street we’d pulled into was a big, modern building that looked a bit like an unoccupied single storey office block with car parking spaces outside. Mirinda parked and we hopped out.

The big building was a museum (to what we had to wait to learn because we didn’t know the French word helpfully written on the signs) and, while the back was all very modern and featureless, the front was built in 1845 and was all white and fancy and steeped in a mysterious history. The odd thing was the number of people around the place. Some were sitting on the benches running down one side of the big empty space in front of the museum entrance, others were wandering over a bridge directly in front of the museum entrance. It all looked quite popular and busy but it was impossible to know why.

We wandered over to the museum entrance and outside sat a small A-frame sign which had the words ‘panoramic brasserie’ on it with an arrow pointing over the bridge. It also had other words on it but we didn’t really understand them so we decided to follow the arrow and cross the bridge.

The bridge crosses the Charente River which runs through Angouleme. It straddles an island in the middle of the river which has had many uses but is now allowed to run wild and be a wonderful wild place for children to run around in and discover big metal cut outs of centurions, knights and fishermen. Standing, looking out at the island is a statue to Corto Maltese, the creation of writer Hugo Pratt.

We continued on across the (very long) bridge, pausing to look across at the Museum of Paper which stands on the site of a paper mill. Apparently, the production of paper is one of the things that Angouleme was known for and the museum is probably not as dull as it sounds. We were still looking for the brasserie so we didn’t investigate. Sadly, and as we’d expect, the signs had ceased so we headed for an extremely bizarre looking building and tried there.

The building was another part of the museum across the river. A designer had decided to marry the old, existing building with a very modern exterior consisting mainly of mirrored windows and stairs that appeared to float in space. It was especially odd in the sunshine. We found the door and asked for the brasserie.

The very pleasant girl at reception told us that it was on the third floor but warned us that it closed at 3pm. Mirinda thanked her but, given it was a Wednesday and most things in France are shut on a Wednesday, informed her that it was only 1:30. The girl agreed, smiled and repeated that the brasserie was on the third floor. We entered the lift fully expecting the brasserie to be closed.

It wasn’t and we sat looking out over the panorama for which it is named, enjoying a strange tuna and egg brick (Mirinda) and a Captain Bicep burger (me). We left long before the 3pm closing time. Mirinda thinks the girl was making sure we knew that the normal four hour French lunch was out of the question. When we left she looked quite surprised we’d only been there for an hour.

At some stage (and I’m not sure when) we worked out that the museum was for comics and could be worth a visit one day in the future. What could also bear another visit would be the old centre of Angouleme which sits high up on a hill which we drove up and round on our way out of town. I’m betting it’s really beautiful and medieval up there. Maybe we’ll pop in on the way back…or maybe not.

It was then time for Linda to take us on the scenic route to the Dordogne. She seems to do this with monotonous regularity. The first part of a journey she insists on motorways but then, if we stop for a break it’s like she decides she’d rather fancy seeing a bit of the countryside and hits the small roads. While going the scenic route was very pleasant and made the drive interesting with plenty of silly signs, it did mean we found the hell that is the Riberac one way system.

I’m sure that the authorities that hold sway over Riberac regularly change the one way system in order to trap tourists in the depths of its streets. We spotted quite a few abandoned cars and lost souls somewhere in the middle. Linda was completely confused, trying to make us drive up streets the wrong way, constantly recalculating our route through. It was frightening.

Mirinda, however, remaining calm and refusing to listen to Linda, wove us through the tiny, fragmented lanes and eventually we emerged, reasonably unscathed, beyond the Riberac environs. We vowed never again to visit this hell hole.

One of the things that Linda quite prides herself on is her ability to work out when we’ll arrive somewhere. She displays it quite happily on her screen. We have no idea what it’s based on unless she knows how Mirinda drives and works out some sort of personal average but she’s pretty accurate.

For instance, ever since Angouleme, she’d decided we’d arrive at Liorac-sur-Louyre at 4:53. This was very handy because the owner would be meeting us at 5pm (according to the email she’d be there at 5pm and if we were going to be later we’d have to ring her). Given the various things sent to halt our progress (the Riberac one way system, a mass of mad bicycle riders practising for the Tours de France, road works, etc) the time had fluctuated up and down by a few minutes but was pretty much consistent. And we would have arrived at the farmhouse on the dot of 5pm if only we’d not missed the farmhouse and become a bit lost.

The level of lostness was nothing compared to our attempt to find the supermarket later but even so, we had to drive for quite a distance before we could turn around and retrace our steps. Not that it mattered. The owners live about 50 yards away in the big house so would have been there regardless.

The place we’re staying in for the week is a converted pigeonnier (a place for pigeons to live in) and is in an amazing spot. Surrounded by beautiful countryside, high on a hill, it is heavenly. The owners gave us a thorough tour ending in how to access the Internet (yay!) before we set off in search of groceries for the week.

I think we’re going to enjoy our week here…