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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.

One of the joys of Angoulême is its many restaurants – at the last count there were about 80 restaurants in the Charente capital in all. Many of them. including some of the best, are based around the old historic centre of Angoulême.

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’.

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