Campervan Therapy

I choose Camping du Lac de Mondon, in Haute-Vienne’s Cromac, from the ACSI book, merely because it’s 14 kilometres from the free A20 motorway. But first we’re stopping off at Domain de Candé in Monts, as the nice young man in Azay-le-Rideau’s tourist office recommended it.

Domain de Candé – Monts

This is a generous, Touraine Region-owned estate – unless you want to go inside the grand house, you can wander around the grounds, stables, hunting lodge, wash-house, lake, and through the woods for free, or lounge in the huge variety of quirky seating. Built in 1860 by a wealthy Cuban/English aristocrat, no money was spared on the wonderful turreted house. The children’s oak play area has boardwalks over reed beds, play houses that look like giant bird’s nests, the climbing frame a bird cage.

Sculptures

It’s the kind of ramble I love, the trail taking us round a series of surprises.

We come across sculptures to make us smile or think, the wood nymph, with her tree root or the giant heron’s nest that speaks to you in wistful fluting noises, building to a grand crescendo, which I guess is the heron in flight.

There’s the dragon that’s leapt ‘out of the château’s walls’, with his gleaming yellow eye, and a foot poking out of his mouth.

Tool men, fashioned from rusting metal, stand in the kitchen garden. A metal red deer and a wild boar stand in a meadow.

I pedal away on the bucking metal horses, with Himself, of course, perched on the saddle that bucks up and down as I work.

Traditional Apple Varieties

The orchard is a site of biodiversity, the grass meadow kept long, the seed heads sizzling in the sun, paths curving through traditional varieties of apple, peach, apricot and pear trees. I reach, like Eve, for an apple I’ve not come across before, its honey scent so tempting. A young woman harvests fulsome tomatoes.

Orange squashes glisten from the fences – the cut flower bed a riot of colour.

Edward VIII

Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson lived in the château when he abdicated, signing the final papers in the orangery. There’s a real sense of history unfolding about the place.

The Washhouse

But I’m more drawn to the lives of the workers on these grand estates, so I study the lakeside washhouse. I poke around the fireplace where the washerwomen boiled up the water for soaking the clothes. I think of them scrubbing the household’s linen in the stone troughs, trading in secrets.

Camping du Lac de Mondon – Cromac

We hit lucky in this off-the beaten track site, there’s a fête going down in the Auberge du Lac’s grounds, so after a cheeky Kir Cassis in the auberge, we dance the night away  under the fairy lights. Everyone, from the 2 year old boy to the octogenarian grandad, struts their stuff. We buy our morning bread at midnight before walking the few metres home under a full moon.

The Money?

Camping du Lac de Mondon – €19.90 per night.

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