Snails, slugs and sausage forest.

.........continuing our ‘France Passion’ tour through France in Rusty, our old camper van.

It was soon time to move on, away from the river and into the wine region of Bergerac. The grown ups decision, obviously! It was amazing how quickly the landscape changed from toffee coloured cliffs and wide rivers to rows of craggy green vines on gently undulating hilltops.
Our overnight France Passion stop was at Chateaux….Whilst we sampled the local rosé, the boys were entertained by the family’s donkeys and sheep. We camped next to their stone farmhouse guarded by an old fat cat. Our aim was to reach the market at Ste Foy le Grande as early as we could in the morning as were told it was the best one in the area......so an early night for us all.

We were not disappointed. Ste Foy Le Grande was a delightful old town with a large traditional market.

Every street is was bursting at the seams with local produce and we were entertained with puppet shows, jazz bands, violinists and bird warbling!

Laden with food, we searched, as always for a riverside spot. We ate a lunch of Saission de sanglier, Comte cheese, strawberries, fat tomatoes, crinkly lettuce, even saussion kangaroo, accompanied by the boys’ rendition of ‘Tie me kangaroo down sport!’

Off on the road again, we discovered a tumbled down farm building, an Angora farm. Angora La Brosse at La Chapelle Blanche Saint Martin. Red geraniums bloomed from wooden widow boxes. The shutters were closed but a charming old lady appeared in her work overalls as soon as she heard the van, desperately keen to show us round. She owned over 40 goats with amazingly soft angora coats which she has been farming for over 25 years. She sold the bags of angora fleece in the village markets through out the winter. They are dipped in natural dyes in every shade imaginable.

In the afternoon we popped into the snail farm at Vaunac L’Esargot du Perigord and were shown around the vast damp polytunnels housing 1000s of snails. We were very sad that we would not be around in the area in the evening for a tasting session and even a meal of snails if we were so inclined!! Shame!

However we were to see plenty of ‘wild’ snails at our next location. The Forêt du Verger at Amboise in the Loire valley. We parked on a desolate track and hung our silk hammock from the oak trees. It was great territory for our little bug hunters and we counted hundreds of brown sticky ‘poop’ slugs on our forest walk. (Suitably named). In true tracker style, the boys made sure they could find their way back to Rusty by laying down arrows made from sticks. Whilst lying in the hammock later with my youngest child, he mistook the sound of acorns falling onto the van for Daddy bear, growling. (He is deaf and wears cochlear implants) Both boys were desperate to see Daddy bear, so they concocted a cunning plan. The boys asked me to cook some

sausages for the animaux sauvages to have for their supper and the sausages were dutifully placed at the side of the van. The boys went to bed, noses pressed against their window hoping for a sighting.
In the morning , great excitement! The sausages had been nibbled and one had completely disappeared! However I did see a poop slug sliming away from the scene!
The forest proved to be a real favourite for the boys and they hoped to return to ‘Sausage forest’ (as they now called it), again one day.

We stopped at Vendome for our lunchtime break then headed off to the deer farm, Deer La Freme de L’Etang in Epuisay .We parked our van close to the fence. What a view!

Hundreds of deer as far as the eye could see. There were breeding adults with their new born fawns in the near field and the young deer in the further fields. They would then go for slaughter and sold as deer meat. After a personal guided tour we visited the shop and bought pâté, mousse and little deer saussisans which were perfect to take home for the boy’s school lunchboxes. At night we heard metallic scraping as the stag rubbed his itchy antlers on the wire fence. By morning ragged bloodied scraps of skin hung off his antlers and he was obviously relieved from his night time scratching.
We ate our breakfast watching the hungry deer eating from their troughs right by the fence and reluctantly left them to continue on our journey.

The next leg of the trip took us into the beautiful town of Amboise in the Loire Valley.

The town was particularly exciting for me as it was full of
cafés, pâtisseries and chocolatiers!

Their window displays lured me inside with chocolate
goodies too beautifully packaged to eat, bags of nougat
tied with ribbon and delicately painted marzipan fruits
on paper doilies.



A walk through the town, 500m past the Château d'Amboise lead us to Leonardo da Vinci’s house -Clos Lucé which is where he lived out the last years of his life. The gardens housed many life sized working models from Leonardo's own designs which we could sit in, operate, drive or propel. We even paddled our own da Vinci boat on the lake.



What a fabulous day out for boys who like
to explore how things work and girls who
like chocolate!

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