A New Adventure in France

We’ve had a couple of car-themed weeks in various ways. One of our key tasks for after our arrival was to get a practical French car, i.e. not a Jeep, classic motorbike or campervan. It’s not something we’ve been particularly enthused about but we’ve found a nearly-new small Renault Captur that should serve us well and we should be able to collect in about a week. Like most transactions here, everything seems to take time with an inordinate amount of paperwork to be provided, so we have to exercise patience and carry a bag load of documents with us.

As far as more interesting cars go, we spent a very enjoyable long weekend near Angoulême to watch the historic car racing at the Circuit des Remparts – an event that we first attended 2 years ago. We met up again with friends Steve and Yvonne who were at the start of a two month caravanning trip in France and we stayed at a pretty lakeside campsite about half an hour outside Angoulême.

As we did last time, we decided to follow the Saturday Countryside rally of classic cars which, as luck would have it, passed right in front of the gates of the campsite, so we were able to stand and watch them pass by. We attempted to follow the cars during the rest of the day but the route seems to be top secret and is only publicised in detail to those taking part, so we were a little behind the main cavalcade and a lunch stop also slowed us down.

On the Sunday we took the park and ride shuttle into the town to see the vintage cars at close quarters in the pits and to watch them racing during the afternoon from one of the grandstands. This year’s event featured 100 years of MGs so there was a great collection of very old MGs on show as well as some racing. The highlight for most attendees is the race featuring classic Bugattis – one of the very rare opportunities to see such a collection of old Bugattis in one place, let alone racing. The racing was spiced up by a brief squally shower that made the hairpins and cobbled streets of the old town even more treacherous than usual, adding to the patina of oil that the old cars tend to leave. But the drivers of these old cars were all game and continued racing in front of a very appreciative audience. Once again a huge thank you to Steve and Yvonne for ferrying us around by car and entertaining us for dinner at the campsite.

We thoroughly enjoyed being away again in the van and took the opportunity on the way home (still seems strange to call it that) to make a detour to Brantôme in the north Dordogne. It’s a town that we’ve seen featured on TV programmes a number of times and it seems to be popular with Brits. In fact it’s one of the few places in France that we’ve had to pay to park so it must be very busy in high season. And it certainly is a very beautiful town, also referred to as the ‘Venice of the Perigord’ because the river Dronne wraps itself around the old town creating an island. The other big attraction is its impressive abbey on the riverbank. We dipped in for a brief look round the town and a coffee but it’s definitely a place that would merit a longer visit.

Back at Tournon there are still lots of events taking place each weekend and the village itself was hosting the 10th edition of a classic car gathering. We had signed up the Jeep for the event a couple of months earlier, and participants were encouraged to dress according to the era of their vehicle. Joe isn’t really into dressing up in military gear but we decided to make an effort and turned up in plain military khaki overalls. In the event very few people had dressed up but the overalls were practical and low-key and a number of people liked that we had made the effort.

Joe had previously met one of the participants/organisers on a visit to the village and the main organiser knew the former owner of our house through cycling, so we were warmly welcomed. After meeting up under blue skies in the square of the bastide at 8.30 a.m., we completed registration formalities and set off, after a welcome coffee, for a 40km run in the surrounding countryside. We followed a lovely route on roads we hadn’t yet travelled and made a first stop at a nearby village to gather everyone together again and to take part in an automobile themed quiz where the competitive spirit of the French attendees became very apparent.

We carried on to the next stop at a local vineyard where trestle tables were set out with bread and pâté and a range of wines for tasting. All were enthusiastically hoovered up and then it was back into cars to compete the circuit back up to the Bastide. Lunch was served to about 120 participants under the arcades of the town hall by a band of volunteers from local restaurants and associations. Our fellow diners were all very friendly and a common interest in something like old cars makes chatting and integrating much easier. As well as participants, the display of cars drew a number of visitors, so it’s all good business for the village.