Poitiers Travel Articles & Travelogues

FRANCE TRAVEL ARTICLES

POITIERS October 2003

We arrived in Poitiers at about 2.30pm on 8th October and booked into Hotel Ibis Central, but they only had one room available. They described it as a family room, so more expensive, but it was a particularly cramped room – especially the bathroom. It was minute. You had to open the door to use the sink or to dry yourself after having a shower! In addition, it reeked of cigarette smoke. We probably wouldn’t have taken it had we seen it before booking in. To cap it all, the lift broke down soon after our arrival.

We soon discovered that Poitiers is a lovely town with lots of nice old streets and buildings. We went inside both the cathedral and Notre Dame, where there were wonderful designs on the columns. Rather strangely, we remembered having had lunch in Poitiers on a previous visit to France and coming away with the impression that it was a much smaller place. In retrospect, perhaps we lunched in one of the suburbs! In the Fink chocolatier, we had coffee with lovely Florentines. The price of chocolate in the shop was exorbitant – 58€ per kilo. After returning to the hotel, we decided we didn’t want to stay in that room for two nights, so we went down the street and booked a room for the following night at Hotel de l’Europe. It was nicer and cheaper.

We booked a table at le Poitevin, and then had a beer at a nearby bar. When we returned to the restaurant, I decided on the Gourmand menu at 26€ and Norman chose the Chasse menu at 28€. I had a starter of langoustines, gesiers, and foie gras salad whilst Norman had a sort of pressed hare terrine with a beetroot sorbet. The bread was really nice. My main course was scallops with creamed potatoes, chopped peppers and black olives in a cream sauce. Norman had venison with a red fruit sauce and tagliatelle. My cheese course was a chèvre in a puffed pastry case with lettuce and nut bread. A local blue cheese on a pastry case was Norman’s choice. His choice of dessert was prunes but I had spaghetti ice, which turned out to be ice cream with a raspberry sauce and some sort of cake crumbs. It was much too sweet for my taste. We drank water and a nice Saumur Champigny with the meal and coffee came with petits fours and chocolate. It was all very good and cost 79€. When we returned to the hotel at about 10.30pm, the lift was working!

Thursday morning dawned reasonably bright and still quite warm, and we went for breakfast at about 10.15am at a bar round the corner from the hotel. Norman went to a patisserie and brought back some lovely pastries, which we ate with our coffee. Then we returned to the hotel and booked a room for four nights in our usual hotel in Rouen. After this, we drove around the corner to the Hotel de l’Europe, where we left our cases and the car.
We looked around the shopping centre before walking down to the Sainte-Croix¬ Museum. It was worth a visit. The advertised exhibition was Chinese archaeological finds from Guangxi, which proved to be very interesting. The permanent exhibition included some very nice nineteenth century paintings and sculptures. Entry also included the Chievres Museum too, but we have a whole year in which to go back there before our ticket expires!

After looking at the outside of the baptistery of St. Jean, we walked down to the river, across the bridge and back. Then we visited Ste. Radigande, which was quite plain inside, similar to St. Pierre, the cathedral. We wandered around this area for a little while, before climbing back up to the hotel, where we moved our luggage into a very pleasant room. Next we visited another chocolatier and tea room, where we had coffee and rather good cakes.

We noticed some nice buildings at the end of Rue de Victor Hugo, and walked down to have a look. The street ended in a rather pleasant square of official buildings, a nice example of nineteenth century town planning and architecture. As it began to look as though it might rain, we went into Printemps to look around, and then called in the local bar for a cherry juice, being careful to avoid the hole in the floor down to the cellar!

We had hoped to dine at Maxime’s, but found it was fully booked, so we decided to book a table at le Poitevin again. Once again, we had a very good meal. This time, Norman had the regional menu at 24€, and started with a sort of confit of rabbit. I stuck with the same menu as the previous evening but a different selection, starting with a quail and blackberry salad. Norman had lamp chops with haricot beans and tomato, while I had foie gras, lightly grilled, with sliced pear and fruit compote. As I did not want much to drink, we had a half bottle of Sancerre and water with the meal. The bread was very good again. Next we both had a very nice chèvre with walnut salad and different nut breads. For dessert, Norman had three different sorbets and I had a sort of chocolate sponge with a soufflé type filling. Coffee was served with nice petits fours – buttery biscuits, tiny fruit tarts and dark, milk and white nut chocolate. On this occasion the meal cost only 70€.

Before we set off on 10th October, Norman went back to the patisserie and bought a couple of pastries to take with us. It was a fairly dull day, but dry, when we left Poitiers at about 8.30am.