Discover Poitou-Charentes Blog

Plans by Angoulême Airport in the Charente to work with CityLineSwiss to provide a new service to London Gatwick have been put on hold. The airline says they the flights, which should have begun in late May or early June, have been postponed to the autumn.  However there are now serious doubts about the viability of commercial flights at the airport and thus the future of any UK service from the Charente. The problem is that the various local authorities who provide much of the funding for the airport are worried about who picks up the bill if the Gatwick service makes a loss. ‘We’re not a bank,’ says department council president Michel Boutant. The mayor of Angoulême Philippe Lavaud, who heads a coalition of socialist and greens, is also ideologically more in favour of trains than planes. ‘They pollute less,’ he says. Daniel Braud, president of the chamber of commerce (CCI) who run the airport, and himself a keen fan of the flights, is now publicly wondering whether they can hope to maintain a service in the future. For more information on the status of the flights – including those to Marseille and Pau – visit the CityLineSwis website.

The Charente has been designated a ‘leading department’ in terms of the quality of its holiday accommodation, and specifically its gîtes. During a recent visit to the Poitou-Charentes region the president of Gîtes de France Yannick Fassaert said visitors are attracted by the calmness, relaxation and diversity of the different landscapes the Charente can provide. However he said that the fact that one in four visitors return is doubtless also due to the warm welcome that guests receive in the area from their accommodation hosts  ‘We have to be the ambassadors of our region,’ added Claudine Richon, the Gîtes de France president in the Charente.

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.

The Charente and Angoulême have got their flights to London back. On Saturday 10 April CityLine Swiss – a subsidiary of Cityline Hungary – began accepting reservations for flights starting later this spring at the end of May between the Angoulême-Cognac International Airport and the UK. The flights are to London Gatwick and will be three times a week – on Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Tickets are at €55, which includes a snack and soft drink on board the aircraft, a McDonnell Douglas 83, with a capacity of 150 passengers. Passengers will be allowed one item of hand luggage and hold luggage up to 20kg a person will be free. The airport has been working hard to find a company willing to take on flights to the UK after its well-publicised battles with Ryanair over money. Ryanair terminated its agreement with the airport after the latter refused to put up more cash for the Irish airline. As an added bonus for people in the region, CityLine Swiss will also be operating flights to Marseille and Lyon, at €99 a ticket.

‘When We Were Young’

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.

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As the citizens of Charente-Maritime begin the grim task of clearing up after the devastation wreaked by Storm Xynthia, the full impact of the wind and tides has begun to emerge.

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 ÃŽle d’Oléron, ÃŽle 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.

Camping's had a good crisis...

Crisis, what crisis? That could well be the reaction of campsite owners across Poitou-Charentes, many of whom have enjoyed a good summer for camping.  As people chose to reduce the cost of their holidays, either by staying in France or by swapping hotels for tents, campsite owners have been the beneficiary.
France is already the European country with the highest number of seasonal campers  and across the nation figures are up this year by about 3 percent – even as hotel bookings have generally been down.  ‘It should be a good year,’ says Jacques Petit, president of the regional campsite group the Fédération régionale de l’hôtellerie de plein air. Read the rest of this entry »