France on the Backroads

What could be more delightful than to travel the open road in France on a sunny afternoon, with only the occasional tractor to overtake, and miles, sorry kilometres, of straight, well surfaced road. I was reminded of a previous visit following in the footsteps of a friend with whom we were going to rendezvous in the Italian lakes. He wrote me a card with brief directions, but was at pains to mention the numerous stretches of "Chaussee deformee" with the appropriate words of caution. Thank goodness those days have long since disappeared although the sign does pop up from time to time still, but the degree of Deformee is for the most part much less serious.
We were soon passing by the walls of the charming town of Richlieu, quoted as "the finest village in the universe". The Cardinal was not satisfied with that and decided it should become the capital of France, around 1630, however, there was no time to dally and I made a mental note to allow for a visit on a subsequent trip.
We skirted Chatellerault and drove through the lovely little town of Chauvigny, then on to Confolens and eventually arrived in Chalus, and the route of Richard, Coeur du Lion.
A word of advice at this point, if anyone is thinking of following this route I would advise against it. Although at the time it seemed to us to be ideal, needless to say, by this time we were considerably behind schedule and I was moved to try to make a telephone call to our hosts to warn them of our somewhat later than estimated time of arrival. What gave me the confidence to think I could negotiate the intricacies of a French Public Phone Box I do not know to this day, or that I would be able to adequately convey to Madame the essence of my message with my almost non-existent French, but more of that later.