Flow Vélo 5: A Rant and a Ride

La Flow Vélo from Port-d’Envaux to Geay:

Remember I told you about that trekking tent we bought; the one that represents an itinerant cycling holiday? Well, a couple of weeks ago, with a trial weekend of cycling and camping in mind, we opened the package to check we were able to pitch the new tent.

To our frustration, we discovered that the shop had sold us a used tent, covered in grass and mud, with missing pegs and a ripped zip. Our camping weekend plans had to change at the last minute. We weren’t impressed. Next time we’ll pitch our tent in the shop before we leave.

OK, rant over. Back to today’s cycle ride.

A trip to Saintes train station on Ascension Thursday was the opportunity to return our tent to the shop and also to continue our exploration of the Flow Vélo cycleway. We loaded our bikes onto the car: actually, my bike had to go into the car because the carrier will only hold one bike now. Why? Because my husband has become so keen on the idea of itinerant cycling that he’s fitted pannier frames all over his bike.

In fact, he even bought himself a new bike (though not from the same shop as the tent) to replace the 25-year-old one he was using. He tells me it’s because the mechanic couldn’t mend the pedal crankset. However, the day he brought home the new bike, I noticed that the old one had a flat tyre. Coincidence? Faint-heartedness on his part? Or a sulking bike, upset at being replaced by a new one?

Whatever. The point is that instead of studying the ladybird larvae activity in our wilderness, he has been wielding spanners and Allen keys, pannier frames and bags of all shapes and sizes. Our recent outings have won him over to the joys of cycling! We may not have a tent yet, but my idea of an itinerant cycling holiday is certainly taking shape.

The bank holiday dawned cool, cloudy and dry; ideal cycling weather for fair-skinned riders like us, though not so good for photos.

We drove to our last stopping point downstream of Cognac – the charming village of Port d’Envaux – and unloaded our bikes. How I love this little village, as I mentioned in my blog post a few weeks ago.

I checked that Le Canotiers food and drink stand was open for post-cycling nourishment (it was) and we cycled through the village, downstream towards Crazannes.

We took a short detour to check out Panloy castle at the far end of Port d’Envaux. The exterior was disappointing because all we could see were the outbuildings behind the château, though it looks fantastic on their website. Luckily, after a few kilometres along a shady, narrow track, we arrived at Crazannes castle. This 14th century château is nick-named ‘Puss-in-Boots’ castle, as Charles Perrault was inspired to create the Marquis of Carabas (Puss-in-Boots’ master) after its owner.

Our bike ride could have ended here, with my climb up the boundary wall to get a photo of the castle facade. The challenge would have been easy in my climbing boots, but my ex-jogging trainers, which are now my cycling trainers, weren’t as practical for climbing. Still, I managed to get up, take a photo and then scramble down without breaking an ankle or spraining a knee. I don’t think my husband noticed my antics, because he’d cycled on ahead as soon as I announced my intention. He must have seen something interesting in the hedge.

Crazannes is another quintessential village of winding streets and stone houses. It has a picnic area beside the lavoir and, at the far end of the village, in the hamlet called Prévallon, lies the Camping du Petit Bonheur with its 33 pitches and a snack bar. Cycle 200 metres further and you’ll arrive at a riverside area called the Port de la Touche, which seems to be popular with fishermen.

With dog roses flowering in the hedges and wafts of wild honeysuckle filling our nostrils, it didn’t matter that the sun was too shy to make an appearance. What did make an appearance was a coypu, one of the animals that’s classed as a pest along the River Charente. It waddled out of a hedge and crossed the road at a lazy trot, like an over-fed cat. I haven’t been so close to one before. It reminded me of the beavers I saw in Chile, 30 years ago.

The tracks along the stretch of the Flow Vélo between Crazannes and St.Savinien are pleasant but the surfaces aren’t great. There is also little contact with the river. I must admit we deviated a little from the marked route in order to follow the lane along the river.

We did see some interesting features, however. They included this four à chaux (lime kiln) near Le Mung. These kilns, operational until 1945, were packed with stone from the quarries in Crazannes and St.Savinien. The stones were baked for 36 hours until they crumbled into lime dust. This lime was then used by people from the coast and the marshes to coat the outsides of their buildings.

The Flow Vélo follows the GR360 footpath from Le Boutet to St.Savinien. I visited St.Savinien a few years ago to see a fellow author, Alison Woodhouse, whose excellent Novella-In-Flash – The House on The Corner – can be bought from Ad Hoc Fiction. Unfortunately, she has moved, so we couldn’t pop in.

St.Savinien is a delightful little town, which would have looked even more idyllic in the sun. What do you think?

Nestled in a crook of the River Charente, St.Savinien has all amenities and would make an excellent base for a holiday. I like the way the island, Ile de la Grenouillette, with its outdoor leisure centre, miniature port and campsite, is separated from the historic town centre.

Following the Flow Vélo towards Geay, we discovered a canal called Le Moussard and cycled along its banks for a few kilometres. Built in 1962, it carries fresh water from the dam at St.Savinien to the marshland around Rochefort.

Our appointment at Saintes train station meant that we could go no further than the sleepy village of Geay, about 8 kilometres downstream of St.Savinien.

We ate an apple at the 12th century Saint-Vivien Church, which struck us as huge for such a small village. Then it was time to turn around and head back towards Port-d’Envaux.

Today’s fields were filled with hairy crops and huddles of cattle as opposed to the vineyards we crossed further upstream.

Perhaps the livestock explained the clouds of gnats that were determined to hitch a ride on my fluorescent jacket. It actually looked much more stylish with black dots all over it.

Our return journey was far quicker, given that we cut out the St.Savinien bend of the River Charente and headed straight back to Crazannes and then Port-d’Envaux. There was a reason for this.

By reducing our trip to just 39 km, we had time to stop for a reward at our favourite countryside port. As the French say: ‘Après l’effort, le réconfort’ (After the effort, the comfort).

This glass of rosé and a bowl of peanuts from Les Canotiers were my comfort after a grey but enjoyable day.

Flow Vélo 1: First Spring Ride

La Flow Vélo from Cognac to Dompierre-sur-Charente (nearly) and back:

The sun cast its springtime rays into the garage and woke my sleeping bike from its winter hibernation. To be honest, it wasn’t a true hibernation because I’ve been taking it out almost daily since January, feeding it a few kilometres at a time so that it doesn’t forget how to work.

But cycling 8km a day as a form of transport hardly counts as a proper outing to my ambitious steed. Spring beckoned and, before I knew it, my bike was pawing the ground, eager to make the most of the splendid weather. How could I refuse?

So off we set, my long-suffering husband and I, with a picnic, our hammocks and my 52-blade Swiss Army Knife: you never know what might happen when you venture into the wilds of the Charente. I wasn’t particularly worried, though, because my husband remembered to take his compass. It has saved us from many a dark ending in the past.

The objective of the day was not to set an objective. This seemed perfectly reasonable, given our experience of being ourselves on our bikes (as described in my cycling series Doorstep Cycling and Abandoned Parent Training). As long as we could stop every time we saw something interesting, and that I could fit an ice-cream break into the journey, it would be pleasant.

Our chosen route was the cycleway known as the ‘Flow Vélo‘, which follows the course of the River Charente downstream to the sea. I packed my bikini, of course: the sea is a mere 108 km from home. Ice-cream sellers proliferate there.

The 290km Flow Vélo cycleway joins Nontron in the Dordogne to Fouras and Aix island at the mouth of the River Charente. We actually discovered the Dordogne part of the Flow Vélo in 2020 when we cycled from St.Pardoux-la-Rivière to St.Jean-de-Côle and Thiviers, as I mentioned in my blog post Teas and Trees.

But enough of all this waffling and on with the action. After a hasty pumping up of tyres, we cycled through Cognac, admiring the magnolia and cherry blossom and the trees coming into leaf. The first challenge was to discern which side of the river we were supposed to cycle along. We couldn’t find any Flow Vélo signs and the route details on the website page had faded from my memory. So we trusted our instincts and cycled downstream along the Hennessy dock, past Cognac’s port and towards the village of Merpins.

The pretty, shaded path ran directly beside the river and then turned inland to join a grit track. This continued for several kilometres parallel to the Cognac-Merpins road, which was hidden behind a promontory of back gardens. On the right lay the fields and woods of the flood plain, with, unfortunately, no view of the river.

Ideal for runners, dog walkers and cyclists, the track had plenty of shade, with the added bonus of birdsong – and frog-song when we passed a pond. We even saw a man dragging a canoe-on-wheels, though the track was a couple of hundred metres from the river. I hope he hadn’t stolen it from one of those fascinating back gardens.

The track ended at the old centre of Merpins, where we discovered the cobbled Cocuron hump-backed bridge, built in 1777. The stones that sit inside the parapets were put there to prevent carriage wheels from rubbing against the parapets and damaging them. I love the way grass has grown between the cobbles.

After the bridge, we crossed the River Né and brushed the outskirts of Salignac-sur-Charente. There were more Flow Vélo signs now and it was easy to follow the route along winding tracks running through fields lined with ditches full of irises. At one point we saw a stork’s nest with a baby stork inside and spotted one parent soaring through the skies in search of food.

The river, however, eluded us until we arrived at the Port du Lys, which is about 9km from Cognac. This is a beautiful spot beside the river, with picnic tables and a barbecue. In the summer, a riverside guinguette sets up here and we love to lie in a hammock or sit beside the water and enjoy a beer and a meal. It’s run by the association Utopy – a ‘university of laziness’, to quote its website.

The track after the Port du Lys led across ‘La Grande Prairie’, an area we didn’t enjoy as much. It was a flat, open, flood plain of agricultural monoculture: sunflowers, by the look of the dried husks littering the verges. It was windy here, and in the summer there would be no shade.

After the Grande Prairie we were back on lanes and more interesting tracks, some of which ran alongside the river. The Charente had only a few trees on its banks here, which took away much of the charm that seduced us during our cycling trip upstream of Cognac in 2019.

Things improved at La Fosse – perhaps because we remembered that a friend lived there, so we stopped for a drink and a chat. Dropping in on friends is just one of the many advantages of doorstep cycling.

From La Fosse, a little track took us along the railway line and close to the village of Rouffiac. By now, we were flagging a little. We promised ourselves an ice cream at the village of Dompierre-sur-Charente, which was on the far bank and could no doubt be reached via a bridge. Meanwhile, we ate our picnic, supplemented by chocolate éclairs from the best patissier in Cognac (in my opinion).

After a siesta in our hammocks, we set off again, happy to find ourselves on a smooth tarmac lane, ideal for rollerblading. This road took us to Les Clapotis, another guinguette, which looked rather different in the winter without the marquees and bar. Luckily, there were more trees here, making it an enchanting place for a rest.

The Flow Vélo signs pointed us inland again, away from the river. But we were curious to see where the lane beyond Les Clapotis went, especially as it ran along the river and we planned to return with our rollerblades. Might it be a short cut to an ice-cream?

A few hundred metres later, the road led into the river. Yes, into the river! On the opposite bank we could see the village of Dompierre-sur-Charente. It looked like a pretty place to explore, and I was sure there would be at least one ice-cream seller there. But there was no bridge and no sign of the ‘bac à chaîne’ (chain-operated ferry boat) to carry us across. There wasn’t even a chain.

It was lucky I hadn’t set my heart on the objective of reaching Dompierre (or on enjoying an ice cream); otherwise I’d have been disappointed by the lack of boat. I later learnt that the ferry only operates from 15 June to 15 September, 10am-1pm and 2-7pm. It’s free and you can learn all about its history (in French) here.

We were now 25km from home. Although I felt motivated to carry on along the Flow Vélo – with a short detour to Dompierre as soon as we found a bridge – my husband reminded me that we had to cycle all the way back.

Promising ourselves that we’d return soon for an ice-cream the next section of the Flow Vélo, we turned around.

We lost ourselves once or twice but didn’t have to resort to either the compass or my Swiss Army Knife. Eventually, we arrived home saddlesore but happy with our five-hour excursion.

APT 6. Teas and Trees

(Dordogne Cycle Touring 6/6):

A visit to the upper Dronne isn’t complete without a visit to Brantôme – or so the friendly locals in the village bar at St.Pardoux-la-Rivière told us.

It didn’t look too far, so we decided to follow their advice and cycle there the next day, taking only small roads, as usual. An idyllic lane ran parallel to the river on the far side of the main road. It was perfect cycling territory and we even took chances on some tracks. This Abandoned Parent Training (APT) was heavenly!

Brantôme, like many picturesque towns in summer, was crowded with tourists. Despite this, it was worth the visit.

It’s the kind of place you want to visit on a crisp, winter’s day. In fact I’ll definitely be going back this winter because I found treasure there.

My treasure was a little shop called BookStop. It sells English books, holds art exhibitions, hosts visiting authors and even an English writing group.

Best of all, given the morning’s cycling, it has a tea room. The owner, Howard, was serving tea in its little garden overlooking the river. Not any old tea: cream tea! Along with fish’n’chips, cream teas are one of the things I miss about the UK.

Howard’s cream tea was delicious and I loved the British feel of the garden. If you’re in Brantôme, call into 19 rue Victor Hugo and say ‘Hi’ to Howard.

To vary the return cycle ride from Brantôme, we decided to take a series of lanes a little higher in the hills. Our large-scale map didn’t show all the roads but, luckily, my partner navigates with the sun and the lie of the land, (meaning that when the sun sets it’s night and that downhill is towards the river) so I knew we’d be fine.

It was hilly but we were here to train. And then it was even hillier and the sun didn’t seem to be in the right place. There was a distinct lack of roads heading in the direction we wanted. The tracks didn’t lead anywhere either.

At last, we arrived at the campsite, exhausted, with 56.1km on our counter.

Luckily, the two bears were having a party that evening, which meant there were at least six of them waiting for us.

The highlight of the following day again revolved around refreshment. It was hot so we headed along the ‘Flow Vélo’ cycle track to Thiviers, stopping for lunch at St.Jean-de-Côle along the way.

We found the former railway line rather boring because there weren’t many unexpected sights. Thiviers, at the end of the line, was a disappointment too.

But St.Jean-de-Côle was stunning! With its rustic buildings, car-free centre (almost), narrow alleys and roman bridge, it’s a village languishing in a time warp.

We were charmed by the setting of a restaurant called Le Temps des Mets and decided to treat ourselves to lunch there. The tables are on the village green under plane trees and the quality of food was excellent.

Restaurant lunches were something we’d rarely done before, and we certainly couldn’t have afforded it with the kids in tow. You see how our APT senses were sharpening? Thanks to days of hard training, we were finding new possibilities.

Our last day of training took us northeast, with an attempt to find a passage across the River Dronne upstream of the unimpressive Saut du Chalard. We gave up when the track turned into brambles and tree stumps. Our circuit took us past the Arboretum de Montagnac, so we stopped for some contemplative tree-bathing before heading back to the campsite to pack up.

We had successfully spent four days without contacting the kids and had hardly even thought about them. OK, that last part is a lie, since they featured largely in our conversations. Still, I felt fully qualified in APT, ready to become an Abandoned Parent at the beginning of September. My partner and I would join a rock-climbing club. We would cycle together. We would eat at restaurants and leave on long camping weekends to discover new guinguettes and local breweries.

Our car packed, I phoned my daughters to tell them we’d soon be home. It was only fair to give them some warning so they could lay the table and demonstrate the life skills they’d learnt during our absence.

“Oh good,” said my youngest.

I was pleased to know we’d been missed – until she added that her older sister had a fever and was in bed.

We jumped in the car and raced home (though we did stop to buy a few boxes of Two Bear beers).

We were ready to be abandoned, but abandoning our children was a different matter.

***

Thank you for following my cycle touring ‘adventures’ in the Dronne valley.

If you enjoyed them, you may like to read about my ‘Doorstep Cycling’ trip along the River Charente, which you can find here, or my ‘Writing Residency’ experience discovering the Val d’Azun in the Pyrenees mountains here.

APT 5. The Two Bears

(Dordogne Cycle Touring 5/6):

Our weekend at Lisle in June was a great start to learning to be a couple again, having been parents for 20 years. We considered it so useful in terms of Abandoned Parent Training (APT) that when we had the chance to progress further via a second APT weekend, we seized the opportunity.

This time, we would do it in style. For starters, we’d leave for four days instead of two, and we’d take our roomy teepee rather than the little tent we use for party sleepovers. Our daughters were busy with their summer jobs and claimed they’d hardly notice our absence. I’m sure they were just being brave and would miss us terribly.

Without the kids’ belongings, the car seemed empty, so we found some items of comfort to fill it – such as a folding table and deck chairs – as well as our bikes. We were cycle touring on a different level to our week in the Charente in 2019, when we’d been towing a bike trailer.

We decided to discover the River Dronne upstream of Bourdeilles. The village of St.Pardoux-la-Rivière seemed a good base because, as a meeting place of five roads, it would give us five different directions to explore.

When we arrived, we discovered that the village was perfect. Not only did it have the necessary shops and a market, but it also boasted access to the Flow Vélo cycle route along the former railway line to Thiviers.

 

The campsite, La Font Pissole, was perfect too. Quiet and friendly, it sold the local beer made by ‘Les 2 Ours’ (The Two Bears) brewery at Nontron.

Keen to cycle (rather than falling into a guinguette trap), I suggested we begin as soon as our tent was pitched. So, at 4pm we left the campsite and headed towards a landmark on the map that intrigued my partner: the Saut du Chalard.

“A saut is a kind of waterfall,” he told me. I’d already translated saut as a jump, and now I envisioned a steep hillside with a dramatic waterfall and a ledge at the top from which someone called Monsieur Chalard must have jumped or fallen. The local legend would be described in detail on one of those information panels I like so much.

The day had been hot, and although the first five kilometres were uphill, it was shady and we even saw deer in the woodland. We passed an unlikely wedding group in the tiny village of Champs-Romain, and this, coupled with a bagpipe-player blowing his heart out in the middle of a field near the cemetery, made us wonder whether we’d ventured onto a film set.

The footpath sign to the Saut du Chalard indicated a 1.5-hour walk and a 100m descent. I was a little surprised that we would view the waterfall from the bottom, rather than the narrow ledge at the top. But perhaps we’d be able to walk behind it, like in those Enid Blyton adventure stories.

“Is the path suitable for bikes?” I asked a family returning on foot from the waterfall. They assured me it was.

It was suitable, to begin with. But it soon became obvious that we’d have to dismount if we wanted to spend the weekend cycling rather than nursing broken limbs in hospital. Or maybe that was because we took the wrong path at the fork? Anyway, it didn’t matter that we’d have to push our bikes back up the steep hill afterwards. The sight would be worth it.

The young River Dronne, when we reached it, was as impatient as a mountain stream. There was a good bathing spot with a little rush of water about a metre high between two rounded boulders, making a jacuzzi pool (you can see some photos at the bottom of this page here). I put down my bike and started to walk along the riverbank.

“Where are you going?” my partner asked.

“To find the waterfall. It’s probably upstream,” I said.

When he gave me a sideways look, I realised I’d miscalculated.

“This is the waterfall,” he said. “It’s a saut, a jump, not a chute, a fall.”

That was it: no narrow ledge. No information panel. No broken-hearted Monsieur Chalard jumping to his death in despair.

However, we did complete 16.6km, a record for a couple of hours’ cycling.

Best of all, when we returned to the campsite, there were two cold beers (or two cold bears) and two deck chairs awaiting us.

That was the point I realised that what I love about cycle touring is the arrival, the moment you can refresh yourself with local beer and reflect on the day’s highs and lows.

Carrying the logic of that idea further, did we have to wait until the end of the bike ride to refresh ourselves? I would test this theory the very next day.