1, Saint Jean d’Angely
– our local town has a great history and some lovely buildings and cobbled pedestrianised streets. It’s not huge with a population of 8000 so is lovely and quiet on most days but bustling with life on market days. Wander around the Abbey cloisters (now housing the centre of European culture), the IX century Abbey and the church and visit the library with it’s beautiful ’sistine’ like ceiling.
2, Play Parks
– our local one is just 10 minutes drive away, the ‘loisier’ is located on the river Boutonne and has a lovely lake with ducks to feed your old bread to, there is a large playing field and a super childrens play park with spider web rope climbing frame, climbing blocks, slides, tyre swings, sand pit and much more. A great place to sit in the sun and watch your children making friends with the local French children. In fact every town has a great park and they are all different and all within a reasonable driving distance.
3, Cognac
– a beautiful town with cobbled streets and dozens of ’Cognac’ houses, take a stroll along the river and see Otard, Hennessey and Martell all within a few hundred metres. See if you can spy their storage houses or ‘chai’ where the evaporation of the eau de vie (or angels share) creates a black mould on the buildings. You don’t need to do a tour (although we have buy one get one free entrance cards for Hennessey) but you can freely enter the shops and look at the bottles of ‘Paradise’ at thousands of pounds a bottle (keep hold of the kids hands !) afterwards you could walk/drive down to the huge play park located on the river.
4, Beaches
– the Charente Maritime has literally hundreds of miles of beaches and the ones from La Rochelle down to Royan are all within 1 hrs drive of our family friendly gites at La Grange du Moulin. They are all safe, shallow and sandy and vary from small and quiet to large and touristy – there is a beach for everyone. In La Rochelle the town beach is plenty large enough to please the little ones and is close to the town, so you can tie up the beach with a day sightseeing this beautiful town and save on petrol. The beaches close to La Palmyre have been designed so that when the tide goes out (and it goes out a long way !) there are sea water pools left for the children to play in. Along the coast south of Royan are cliffs and rock pools – another great activity that will keep the kids happy for hours at no cost.
5, La Rochelle
– our departments capital and a world renowned city, a definite must see when visiting our region. There are thousands of restaurants (including Michelin starred ones) but when on a budget there are plenty of small family restaurants you can eat at and enjoy the ‘moules frites’ at very little cost , better still, take a picnic, sit in the park or on the beach and watch the world go by. The city is filled with beautiful buildings and we recommend a stroll around it’s busy streets, the tourist info office will give you a walking tour with information on the various historical buildings; go on a Sunday and one of the towers is free to climb (but the shops will be shut – probably a good day to go if you want to avoid temptation)
6, Local markets
– All the towns will have a market at least once a week. In our area these are still very much how the locals do much of their weekly shopping, so you will find a huge array of fresh fish, meat, cheese and fruit and vegetables and much fewer ‘handbag’ stalls. You could just browse and soak up the atmosphere but we highly recommend buying your fresh fish from the twice weekly market in St Jean, there is good competition between the stall holders, prices are keen, the produce is very fresh and there’s a much better choice than the supermarkets – pick up some oysters to enjoy at our seafood evening. A great way to practice your own French and encourage the children to say a few words too.
7, Ile de Oleron -
there are several islands off our coastline but this one is free to get to (the Ile de Ré has a toll) it’s larger and a bit busier than the others of course, but you can still find unoccupied beaches, woodland trails, cycle routes (if you’ve brought your bikes) and visit the lighthouse (under 6yrs go free)
8, Walks –
There are lots of lovely walks around our La Grange du Moulin family holiday gites. Wander up past the sunflowers and maize to the woods where you will find lots of tracks to discover, spot wild flowers and you may even see a deer if you are up early. You have the freedom to roam along all the tracks which criss cross the fields, the lanes are very quiet and you would be unlucky to see a car. One of our favourite routes is up to the woods and along the edge of the vineyards then back along the river Nie where we can stop at the ‘old stone bridge’ where the trolls live. You can cycle these routes too.
9, Saintes Roman ruins
– Park close to the Triumphal arch of Germanicus located on the river Charente, wander around the free museum close by which has a collection of stone carvings, parts of Roman buildings and statues too. A stroll through the town and past the two abbeys (also free) will take you to the ampitheatre – it is in a quiet residential area and although there is a small charge to enter, you can easily walk around the outside and see just as much. In summer they often have free concerts in the ampitheatre itself but you have to be quick to get tickets, so join the tourist office web site to keep informed. On your way home if you are still in the ‘Roman’ mood stop at Venerand, a small village en route where there is the start of the aqueduct that fed Saintes with spring water.
10, and finally
– have a day at the holiday cottages here at La Grange du Moulin. You can sit back in the sunshine, reading a good book and sipping a chilled glass of wine whilst your children play in the safely enclosed play garden making new friends. Our weekly Teddy Bears picnic is completely free and all the children really look forward to the bubbles, Teddy cake and balloon animals.
Remember these are just the free things to do, proving you can have a lovely holiday without breaking the bank.
