France & Spain October 2025 - October 20th

With the plan to to Donzenac aborted yesterday and us ending up on the CCP site at Saint-Léon sur Vézere, it meant that we needed to rethink today and the rest of the week's journey and overnighting spots.

We set off around 1020 today. We were originally heading up the A20/N20 to another CCP site at Thénioux near Orleans.

What should have been a simple run eastward to Brive became another C roads funathon. 

Once we finally got onto the A20 after a little of the A89 we discussed options. By the time we stopped at the Area Porte de Corrèze services we had decided to abort Thénioux and get somewhere not as far away.

Checking the road map and CCP app we hit on the aire at Oradour sur Glane. It's a popular aire as it's not too far from the "village martyr".

We went to the village way back in 2008 when we stayed in the creepiest gite the world has ever known. Unfortunately I can't share any photos of the gite as I can't find any!

It's a very sobering experience. Oradour-sur-Glane Memory Center | Limousin – New Horizons https://share.google/Ny8nRf3gYi1c5HH6I

By the time we had setup it started to rain. The village isn't dog friendly as it's a memorial. It's 15 minutes to walk but not in the rain! Maybe tomorrow on our way out?

The aire is quite large and the pitches are curiously arranged, some of them seem to be on the internal roadway and you would park nose to tail.  Others are under the trees each side of the toilet block. It would appear that these are intended for two vans, but there is little of no demarcation between spaces.  So everyone just parks in the middle. It doesn't help as the trees limit the available space.

As you can see from the picture above, we parked on the black tarmac pitch. It's only wide enough for one van.  The concrete are in the foreground slopes. Who would want to park there? In the background is the toilet block. The sinks on the end have no taps and are overgrown with rubbish and filth. The toilets are locked and feature heavy metal doors, and the urinal in the centre has to be the worst I have seen in over 50 years of travelling in France.

The re-think means that the Tuesday overnight has to change. Instead of the champagne aire near Epernay, we will now keep going roughly north to the Loire Valley and another CCP aire at Veuzain sur Loire.

It's only around 125 miles so we might get a chance to pop into a chateau or two...