Corgnac to Lac Saint Pardoux

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Motorhome Journey – Corgnac to Lac Saint Pardoux

 A beautiful clear blue sky and already quite hot by 10.00am here at Corgnac.

From the Aire we walk across the footbridge over L’Isle into the small town of Corgnac sur L’Isle. There are a few cafes, pharmacy, small Proxi (Spar-type supermarket) and the church at the centre triangle of the town. We wander into the church, it is smaller than we are used to, perhaps the interior less ornate and more severe than many Roman Catholic churches but has a peaceful atmosphere all of its own. Walking back to the Aire, we are glad of the shade as the day is getting hotter as the sun gets higher.

We have lunch and leave Corgnac about 1.30pm the way we came in on D-73E back to N-21 at Thiviers and north to Châlus, through Sérielhac to Aixe sur Vienne. Crossing the Vienne River, we follow the river, keeping on N-21 to Limoges. Here we find the Intermarché Ventadour supermarket, just off the ring road.

This Intermarché has covered parking spaces, (see photos), like many French supermarkets the covers are dual purpose, they shade the vehicles under them and have solar panels on top, that must reduce the store’s electricity costs a lot. What makes this particular car park great is that the shades are high, so we can park the Hymer under them, the Hymer is 2.9 metres tall so this is a welcome change. Many French supermarkets have height restrictions set for cars, notably E.Leclerc where we once didn’t encounter the height barrier until we had driven up a ramp, as you can imagine that led to real problems!

It is about 3.00pm so we do a reasonable sized shop (€153) filling the fridge with food and stocking up with some wine: red Fitou and Corbiere and Crémant, our favourite fizz! Shopping in the air conditioned supermarket feels very comfortable. Back on our way, it is 4.30pm and quite busy, we have some difficult getting back onto the ring road but find N-520 which takes us to the north of Limoges where we join A-20, a fast dual carriageway to J.26 at Marnac. Now back on D-5 a small narrow road to D-28 (even narrower) at Prassigout, D-248A then D-248 towards Lac Saint Pardoux. Turning onto the large car park which has a one-way system we follow it round to the Aire almost at the end of the carpark’s road and overlooking the lake. We see the entrance to the campsite with its green pillar and enter using the App. The amount of parking space at Lac Saint Pardoux indicates that it is a very popular outdoor sports area. We speculate that it will be more busy than we like at the weekends.

While Mr C. is registering, I walk around the (reasonably small) site and decide that, as everyone had parked at the bottom end of the site (all pitched taken, many with dogs) we will park on near the entrance. Here there are pairs of pitches with lots of room, ours with an elevated view overlooking the trees and forest (rather than the Lake itself). We go first to the service area (which has an awkward access road on a slope), empty the grey and toilet cassette and fill with water. A good plan as it happens, because when we leave the following day the motorhomes are queueing to empty. We stop, put the chairs and table out behind Hymer and open wine.

Although the day is hot 31°C, it is quite cool under the trees and sitting behind the vehicle we have no view of the other mohos. Later, after beefburgers and tomatoes from Intermarché, we walk to the lake. There is a large wooden viewing platform with a great view facing west down the length of the lake. We watch the sunset in an orange and red sky, then an early night for us.

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