Benefits of blogging...

One of the good things of blogging is that you get to share other people's knowledge and benefit from their experiences. There was a good example of this yesterday when Pauline and I went on what can only be described as an 'ecclesiastical road trip,' with friends Mike and Liz, up around  Richelieu and Chinon. I'll give more details later but we were out for the day and this meant we had to find somewhere for lunch .In planning our trip,something I rarely do in fact, I had decided that due to our itinerary the town of L'Ile Bouchard would be the perfect place to stop for lunch.The town is unusual in that it is actually split into three sections by the river Vienne which has created a central island (thus the name) with two bridges connecting the three parts.This photograph above from   http://www.crc-resurrection.org allows you to see it clearly.

Pauline reminded me that Jean  (AVGP) had blogged about a great meal she and Nick had had at the 'Auberge de l'ile' here so we decided to seek out the restaurant. It is actually on the island and proved to be a very good decision. Lunch was excellent - there is no 'plat de jour' on offer here and  it was a bit more expensive than we would normally pay (us being poor country folk) but was well worth it.

The dining room was very smart, which, with the fine food and pleasant staff made it a very enjoyable experience. 

We ended our meal with a tasty desert and were congratulating ourselves on managing to finish it and on our choice (and taking Jean's advice),when we were presented with our coffees and our next surprising challenge. We rose to it!

After lunch we had a little time to kill before meeting up with fellow bloggers Colin and Elizabeth for 'Ecclesiastical part III' so we decided as we were in 'church mode', to walk over the bridge that led us to the projecting steeple of the church of Saint Maurice.

This had not been in our 'planned' itinerary but  it was there and was interesting enough.

What we hadn't realised was,that, had we made the decision to visit the town's other church, the church of Saint Gilles, we would have been in the building that, as far as the catholic church is concerned, is where one of the most signifiicant events of the 20th century took place! see here. So much for research!

'Ecclesiastical parts I and III to follow),,,