The Area around Chez Fely
Chalais is a small market town nestled in rolling countryside.
Dominating the town is the château of Talleyrand, standing guard over the town and looking out over rolling vineyards and sunflower fields.
Inside the château is the nationally renowned restaurant. Chalais has a good range of shops including a supermarket for all your essentials.
Chalais has a year round Monday market - not to be missed.
The picturesque village of Aubeterre-sur-Dronne is very popular with French and foreign tourists alike as it has been voted one of the top ten prettiest towns in France.
Here you can spend the day on the river beach, swimming or canoeing and then stroll in to the town for a pineau in the old village square.
Also, within easy distance of Chez Fely is Angoulême. This hilltop cathedral city used to be dominated by paper mills that employed thousands of workers and bolstered the city's prosperity. The industry collapsed in the 1980s, and today only a couple of small, specialized mills still function. Since then the economy has picked up again, especially the tourist industry, and it's now a moderately prosperous place. Anyone interested in history cannot fail to be impressed with Le Musée de la Résistance.
Bordeaux is a 1 hour drive away. The town has an excellent park and ride tram system. This enables you to travel into the heart of the city and view the beautiful architecture and river without having to drive. Bordeaux has an easy mix of shops, cafés and exotic emporiums.
In Roman times, Bordeaux was capital of the province of Aquitania Secunda. With the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine and King Henry II of England in 1152, it quickly became the principal English foothold for their three-hundred-year Aquitanian adventure, and it was to their presence, and particularly their taste for its red wines – imported back to England and termed "claret" – that the region owed its first great economic boom. The second boom, which financed the building of the gracious eighteenth-century centre of Bordeaux, came with the expansion of colonial trade.
The countryside surrounding Bordeaux is more notable for its wines and vineyards than its scenery, though the hills of Entre-Deux-Mers and the pretty town of St-Émilion are worth visiting in their own right. More interesting is the vast pine-covered expanse of Les Landes and the huge, wild Atlantic beaches of the Côte d'Argent to the south, but it's not a landscape that charms. Its appeal is more in its size and uniqueness – and you definitely need your own transport to explore it.
Chez Fely is 5 minutes from the Charente/ Dordogne border and the River Dronne. Where you can canoe the day away stopping only to enjoy a lazy picnic watching the kingfishers and otters.
Ten minutes away from the cottage is the water park of Paradou. It has a sandy beach, trampolines, swings, tennis, crazy golf, a water slide and last but by no means least a friendly bar for a beer when the temperatures soar.
If you wish to have a day at the seaside we are just over an hour away from the beaches of the Charente-Maritime at Royan and La Rochelle and less than two hours away from the beaches of Cap Ferret and Archachon.
There are lots of places to visit during your stay at Chez Fely. The immediate vicinity has cycle tracks to follow and there is a selection of bikes for you to use. Or why not just walk through the lanes and woods and visit our neighbour who is reputed to make the best pineau in the area.
There is also a selection of games available, as well as basketball and table tennis. And our pool, of course, which has a laser alarm system for your added peace of mind.
Horse riding
There are a couple of equestrian centres locally. However, we entrust our children to a centre 20 minutes away. The owners and staff are friendly, safe and knowledgeable in all matters equestrian.
Follow this link if you would like to learn more about the Ecole d'Equitation de la Saintonge Boisée.
Every summer Chalais hosts an impressive International Show Jumping Event. The 2009 Show takes place 6 - 9 August (to be confirmed). More info.
Local wine and Vineyards
The Charente is covered with vines and vineyards. One such place, Le Maine Giraud, can be found 20 minutes away.
So good is Le Maine Giraud and its wines that some guests have had to consider whether they could leave a child behind in favour of another case of Blanc de Blanc.
Roadside signs throughout the Charente advertise Pineau des Charentes, a sweet liqueur that's a blending of grape juice stopped in its fermentation by adding Cognac from the same vineyard. It's best drunk chilled as an apéritif; the locals also like it with Oysters and love cooking with it. Favourite dishes include moules au Pineau (mussels cooked with tomatoes, Pineau, garlic and parsley) and lapin à la saintongeaise (rabbit casseroled with Pineau rosé, shallots, garlic, tomatoes, thyme and bay leaves).
St-Émilion, just 30 minutes from Chez Fely, is well worth a visit. The old grey houses of this fortified medieval town straggle down the south-hanging slope of a low hill, with the green froth of the summer's vines crawling over its walls. Many of the growers still keep up the old tradition of planting roses at the ends of the rows, which in pre-pesticide days served as an early-warning system against infection, the idea being that the commonest bug, oidium, went for the roses first, giving three days' notice of its intentions.
... or you could just sit by the pool and relax!