Oof well, last night we rather overfaced ourselves. We went sightseeing in Issoire. It has an interesting Byzantine style Romanesque church and a weird exhibition on the subject of hair! I’d spotted an Auberge close to the hotel and having wandered the streets of Issoire we decided on that rather than the bland brasseries of town. Huge place with local fare and we had Aligot which is the most scrumptious dish in the universe! But filling. And one should not have a pudding - even a bilberry tarte. Sleep was fitful and at 6.30 we decided we might as well get up. It was a lovely morning accompanied by lovely countryside of pretty villages and high pastureland fringed with volcanoes, including the mighty Puy de Dome himself.
Breakfast stop was a quaint town called Champeix. Real shops and faded facades, very bustling. I had just a green tea!
Then a strange place - St Nectaire, a spa town. presumably where the cheese is from. It’s full of huge, and I mean Huge edifices from the Fin de Siècle.
Some are faded, some converted to apartments and some still hotels.
And then Mongolfières. Rather monochrome ones here- blues and greys.
Soaring above a mega château. We didn’t actually want lunch after last night but we stopped in another village to buy something.
Another sight for sore eyes! The whole place was full of ghastly garish rides jammed up against house fronts, even the church!
The landscape had changed now to flat plains but still wall to wall cereal crops and sunflowers. Our lunch break was up near the Cher and a family of kestrels were squealing close by on a barn roof.
Now so close to the Loire and it was hotting up. As we’d got plenty of time in hand we made a trip down memory lane to the village of Oisly, home of the Oisly Thésée wine folk and the delicious Cot vintage. Still as good as ever! Purchase made.
Settled in the Amboise Ibis Budget before going into town for crêpes. Very busy with tourists but we found a good crêperie.
We managed to park by the river near the fabulous Max Ernst fountain. Love it!
Tomorrow Chaumont.
