We didn’t see a soul for all the time we were there last night and this morning, and the usual standard of utter silence was maintained – at least outside the motorhome 😉.

It was almost a world record for us as we were up and gone before 9:30, and that included the all-important coffee. Similar to the last couple of days, I had a distant objective in mind, and the route was then determined by the featured towns and villages from our Escapades en Camping-Car Michelin guidebook.

90% of our day’s driving was along lovely minor country roads and it was another sunny day – we could get used to this almost summery weather. Despite this, the photographer pointed out that there were the wrong sort of clouds, or something like that, which meant that the photographs wouldn’t be that great. It’s beyond me 🙄.

We saw some interesting places, with several being earmarked for a future visit. We were keen to get a lunch out today and as it approached midday we found ourselves in the featured small village of Civray, on the Charente river. Using TripAdvisor we were guided into having an excellent lunch at the ”O City’ven”, a few minutes walk from the dedicated motorhome parking. €15 for 3 courses, with each part of the meal of a very high standard.

Afterwards we checked out Civray’s key feature, it’s ancient church, which has quite a history. Over the centuries, wars and the Revolution have taken its toll on the building, and it is a rebuilt version of the original. I’m not a great fan of churches as such, but I’m glad I put my head around the door because the decor is amazing. Its walls and pillars are decorated in very bold unchurch-like patterns and colours, but they are weathered enough to look very many hundreds of years old. Reading the blurb on this I discovered that it was actually decorated in 1865, and the purists are not at all impressed. Excellent – that makes me like it even more 😉.

The rest of the afternoon continued the pattern of the morning, but with zero exercise other than the odd spot of grocery shopping. As time moved on I could tell that Sophie was wanting to stop sooner rather than later, a rare occurrence, but I had other plans. A number of years ago we’d stopped at a motorhome aire where there were generous set pitches like in a campsite. That day it was pouring down and as I cut a grassy corner to manoeuvre into a pitch the tyre sank right down into mud, and we had to be towed out.

That experience has stayed with us ever since and I felt it was time for a revisit to put it all behind us. An edgy Sophie watched me avoid cutting any corners this time, and I’m currently enjoying the sun and a glass of wine. It’s an excellent stop here at La Forêt-sur-Sèvre.