Celles-sur-Belles - 23 October 2019

23 October

Not what I was expecting to eat last night, but couldn’t find the white wine sauce to go with the chicken! Ended up putting the chicken in a Loyd Grossman stroganoff sauce with mash and sweet corn - perfectly fine!

Very quiet in our corner of the carpark! Rained consistently overnight. Quite hard to get up early when sunrise isn’t until 08.30 and it’s cold and wet! That said, was a bit warmer today than yesterday.

Tintin had a boring 40 minute drive on a virtually straight road! We stopped off at a day park in Melle (population 4,000) as it was mentioned in our guide book.

Had lunch before our walk - the bag of tortillas was certainly large!

We were in for a treat today, not just one - but three old churches to visit!  The town was important in the Middle Ages for its silver mines - didn’t visit - tours were only in French...

The first one, St Savinien was built in 11th and 12th century. It’s been robbed! Nothing inside it! Was used as a prison from 1801 to 1926.

For what seems to be a little town, it has some big impressive buildings. The door was open on one, so we had a look inside...

The main square had a nice open feel about it and had pictures of how the area used to look so you could compare it with now - very little change! Nice to see the care taken with colourful plants even at this time of year.

Next was the church of St Pierre, built in 925 AD as a simple chapel - and extended in two parts in the 12th century. Another one that’s been robbed!

Really strange to see an image of a dead man!

Tintin felt powerful standing overseeing - well me!

As it was empty, and no one around we tried whistling, singing (sort of!) to test out the acoustics - brilliant! Seems we spent longer looking around these empty churches...

Our guide book talked about the magnificent capitals - which we found out are the bits at the very top of the columns.

Thank goodness for Tintin’s phone and data so we could look at Google maps to find the last church. We’d gone to the tourist information, but saw the lady go inside - and then lock the door! Lunchtime is very important here!

The third church was St Hilaire, on the bridge over the Beronne, another 12th century building. The northern transept features an equestrian figure which appears frequently in Poitou, dedicated to Constantine the Great, and therefore signifying the victory of Christians over the heathens.

On closer inspection of the picture of the horse rider - looks like his horse is stepping on the man - not very Christian!

As I’ve said previously, we’re not religious - but a church is a place to visit in most towns - and you never know what you’re going to find.

In this 3rd church, really quite strange, where the usual altar is, was about 35 layers of thin marble, and if it was the font that was sunken - how did they utilize it? Very random!

Love the way the step inside the church has been worn down over centuries of people using it. The Leaning Tower of Pisa is very much like that too!

Walked back to Dave. Another French moho arrived - their dog was shut in the ‘garage’ - he certainly looked very sad and sorry for himself.

As that parking was for daytime only (mohos are allowed to visit, but not spend the night!) Tintin drove for another 15 minutes to Celles-sur-Belle - around yet more deviations.

I got out to google translate a sign, and in that time - Tintin had got stuck in the soggy grass and was wheel spinning - can’t leave him for a moment! We’re now on grass, but a flatter less soggy part!

Tintin also cooked our pizza tonight - it involves carefully guarding of the oven to make sure the gas hasn’t gone out!

We both feel we’re just marking time now, and trying to find things to do - and it’s due to get a lot wetter!