Though the physical signs of the storm are still visible in some of the seaside and beach resorts of the Charente-Maritime, the 2010 holiday season so far looks as if it is a good one.

 Resorts such as Fouras, near Rochefort, and the popular Île d’Oléron are reporting brisk business, while La Rochelle has seen high numbers of visitors too this summer.

 As for the Île de Ré, the most popular part of the Charente-Maritime – which is itself the second most popular department in France for holidaymakers – it seems relatively unscathed by the high winds and waves that crashed over it.

 ‘Whatever happens, the Île de Re is always the Île de Re,’ says one tourism official (presumably even if some bits of it are washed out to sea…).

The picture is not so rosy in all parts of the coastline, however. The beach at Aytré near La Rochelle was badly damaged by the storm and a number of camping areas are still closed.

 Elsewhere in the Poitou-Charentes region, campsites are mostly reporting strong bookings this summer, thanks to the fine weather and the economic crisis (meaning fewer French people are travelling abroad).

However the trend is for better-equipped more upmarket campsites – they seem to be the ones attracting the best bookings. Reservations at cheaper campsites are generally not doing so well.

Figures show that around one third of all visitors using holiday accommodation are from Paris or the Île de France. Among foreign visitors the Belgians now outnumber the British, and they favour the area in and around Angoulême for gîte and holiday accommodation.

More than 70 percent of the 331 gîtes in the Charente are classed in the 3 épis category (broadly equivalent to 3 star), compared with just 45 percent across the country. Another interesting fact was revealed: More than a third of all gîtes in the Charente have a swimming pool.

Our April 2010 production performing in both Jonzac and Saintes in the Charente-Maritime is the story of a girl who wants to, and does, become a well known song-writer and performer, but goes through the traumas of meeting, falling in love with and then losing the man in her life, who also happens to be her inspiration to compose.

Using ‘flashbacks’ the plot takes place in the present, the Sixties and the Seventies

There is a host of great hit songs and instrumentals from the Sixties and Seventies.

Did you used to sing along with Connie Francis and Neil Sedaka, tap your feet to The Shadows, harmonise with The Shirelles and Carole King?

Remember Del Shannon, Buddy Holly, Tina Turner, Helen Shapiro?

We guarantee….you can’t stop the beat!

The Box Office is already open so if you wish to reserve your places well in advance, please click to Théâtre Tricolore’s booking page

Théâtre Tricolore

The airline behind the planned flights from Angouleme - CityLine Hungary

After the disappearance of the Ryanair service, Angoulême Airport in Poitou-Charentes hopes to set up a new service to London Gatwick with Hungarian airline CityLine Hungary. Negotiations are well advanced to establish a three flights a week service to Gatwick on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The all-year service would be reduced to two flights a week from November to April.

The airport hopes the service can begin ‘on or just before 31 May’ and seats will be at a fixed price of ‘below €60’, taxes included. The airline also hopes to offer passengers coffee and a small snack. The McDonnell Douglas MD-83 used for the service would be based at Angoulême-Cognac International Airport at Champniers near Angoulême and would also fly to Marseille and Lyon. The 150-seat capacity aircraft would be run by CityLine Hungary but the marketing of the flights would be carried out  by the airport authorities in the Charente.

If the deal comes off it would be something of a coup for Angoulême Airport, still reeling from the abrupt ending of the Ryanair service in a dispute over money. An airport source told Discover-Poitou-Charentes said they were ‘confident’ that the new service would go ahead.

Across France at least 52 died in the storm, most of them in the coastal resorts of the Vendée but many too in the Charente-Maritime. The worst hit areas here were the islands Île d’Oléron, Île de Ré, Aytré, La Rochelle and Châtelaillon Plage, and the department has reported at least eleven deaths. The coast to the south towards Royan was also hit, but less badly affected than areas further to the north.

The departments of the Vienne and Deux-Sèvres were also badly hit and they, together with the Charente-Maritime, were included in the official state declaration of a natural disaster. This means, in theory at least, that insurance claims for damage caused by the storm in those areas should be able to be processed, and quickly. In Poitou-Charentes the least affected department was the Charente, which was not included in the natural disaster status. Attention is now turning to why so many houses along the coast were built in areas prone to flooding from the sea.

Meanwhile businesses along the coastal area, a popular tourist area for the French and foreign holidaymakers, are having to take urgent action to get ready in time for the holiday season. The government has already pledged cash for stricken businesses, including oyster farms.

However, according to the regional paper the Charente Libre, while there may be plenty of restaurants in Angoulême, finding one to eat in at the end of the evening is no easy matter. The simple question: ‘Is is too late to get something to eat?’ is apparently being heard more and more as many places close their kitchens by 10.30pm. ‘We get asked it regularly, even if it’s still only 9.30pm or 1.30pm,’ staff at Lieu-Dit, rue de Genève, told the newspaper.  This restaurant serves meals until 11pm even if ‘during the week  we can send out the last coffees at 9.30pm because there are no later customers’.

In fact rue de Genève is seemingly an exception, for here there are still a few places that stay open later. ‘I get a stream of customers between 10pm and 11pm, especially at the weekend,’ Fabrice Labouré, boss of the pizzeria Le Scoopitone, told the Charente Libre.  In the same street La Plancha stays open until 2am. ‘We can still look after customers till late, especially regulars,’ say staff. However according to the article these are the exceptions. Even well-known eateries such as Chez Paul, in place Francis-Louvel, which is usually a place where theatre folk like to unwind of an evening, does not cater for late night diners as it might, according to the newspaper.  ‘I went there one Monday evening after going to the cinema – it was 10.15pm and the majority of hot dishes were no longer on the menu,’ a diner called Michel tells the paper.

It seems the omni-present kebab takeaway shops also close soon after the restaurants, Still, even if finding a meal at 11pm is not that easy, the centre of Angoulême is still a fine place for an evening out….

The coast of Charente-Maritime was worst hit by Storm Xynthia

A powerful storm with gusts of up to 150kmh has hit the Poitou-Charentes, killing several people, cutting off the power for tens of thousands of homes and causing widespread flooding.

The part of the region worst hit by Storm Xynthia, which hit France in the early hours of Sunday 28 February, was the coast of Charente-Maritime, where high tides combined to cause flooding. An 88-year-old woman was found drowned in her own home at Boyardville in Saint-Georges d’Oléron on the Île d’Oléron, and there were reports that up to two other deaths could have been linked to the weather in the department. The flooding was also bad in the port resort of La Rochelle, where the emergency services were called in to rescue people from their homes. 

Many thousands of people across Poitou-Charentes – especially the Charente-Maritime, the Vienne and the Deux-Sèvres -  saw their electricity  cut off when fallings trees and branches brought down power lines.  A number of roads were blocked by trees and there was widespread disruption to transport. Across France Storm Xynthia caused at least 45 deaths and brought power cuts to a million homes as repair teams struggled to keep on top of the damage. Worst hit were the towns of La-Faute-sur-Mer and  
Aiguillon-sur-Mer in the Vendée just north of Poitou-Charentes, where a total of  29 people died as the strong winds and surging tide raised water levels by 1.5 metres.  Many of thsoe who died were drowned.

The storm, which was forecast well in advance by France Méteo, is  the severest to hit Poitou-Charentes since the infamous storm of 1999.