The first full day in France, though still one mainly of driving. Planning the night before meant I knew the route to follow, allowing a trip through Blois (famous châteaux town in the Loire Valley), plus avoidance of péages.

I will say one thing for the Residhome Chartres. The beds are superb. Amazingly comfortable. Breakfast was good as well, though a continental buffet. Meant a good start to the day. Route roughly noted down and we were off.

Now while the plan was to go to Blois, it was not necessarily to stop as we did not have time for a decent wander round or a look round the châteaux, both of which we have done as a family on a few occasions in the past. Having made decent time, and finding after a few recalculations the sat nav finally on my side, we both arrived too early for lunch and were on the way out of the town before we changed our minds to stop early. Too late.

Travelling on we took the view that the first suitable stop for lunch would be grabbed, be it a tabac; light restaurant (we did not want anything too heavy); cafe; or hypermarket. We stumbled across Château de Valençay, which from the road did not look that impressive, but offered a near by food joint. We parked up and had a very average lunch at the Kebab.snack de Valencay. We then set off. It was only that evening I discovered it was a shame we did not have the time to look around, and more importantly a shame we did not know the history of the châteaux. One of the previous owners had been Talleyrand. Now you may wonder who he was. A remarkable man, not only did he survive the French Revolution and the even more deadly 1st Republic retributions, but he was Foreign Secretary for Louis XVI, Napoleon, and also Louis XVIII. For foodies though he is more important as the guiding hand and promoter of Antonin Carême, the world’s first celebrity chef who was part responsible for Service Russe, which these days we know as multiple courses, rather than everything being brought out as cooked or at once. Oh Talleyrand was also responsible for the then Prince of Wales (soon to be George IV) hiring Carême with the result of a lot of weight gain an being satirised as The Prince of Whales.

Post lunch it was only about an hour before we arrived at services between Châteauroux and Limoge, by which point the car had just 5% of charge left. It took just 24 minutes to put 67kWh in to the car, taking it to 90% (and adding 260-270 miles of range), while we wandered round the Shell service station.

Next stop was a similar distance away, the Logis Hôtel les Voyageurs in La Coquille. The rooms are decent, with character, but when I went to look up local food joints we came to the realisation this is a restaurant with rooms, and having decided to eat here that evening, that impression was correct. Considering there are only about 10 rooms, the restaurant must have close to thirty tables inside and out, and that evening, being a Wednesday, there were at least a dozen sets of diners, most of whom were not hotel guests. The menu is regional and seasonal based, meaning lots of truffle (this is Perigord after all) and foie gras. The Steak Rossini I had was so tender that you almost did not need a knife.

Anyhow it is now the end of day 2 and tomorrow has been planned.