Saturday was very hot and not the best day for a long drive, but $Friends had selected from the options for Fête de la Musique the rock and punk bands playing in Saintes from early evening. We had a quick look at the amphitheatre in the bright sunlight and huddled in the shade of the café, and then went to find the street where the main performances would be. There was a disabled-parking space on the next road which looked ideal - unfortunately the car in the space behind was crumpled and waiting for a tow-truck which had just driven past without being able to stop, so I stayed to move my car when it returned. The tow-truck went past again, in the opposite direction. My sympathies to the driver: I have exactly the same problem in cities. Anyway, by the time the broken car had been removed, we'd discovered that this street would also be closed to traffic for the Fête. We decided to leave the car there, as we thought we'd be staying until the end, and went to look at the Arch of Germanicus. It really was too hot for touristing, but the little museum (a curious building made up of random bits of Roman houses, walls, and mausoleums rescued from construction works) was cool and shady.
Food proved to be problematic. Some places were closed by the time we were hungry (local people eat the main meal at midday, and it isn't full tourist season yet), and the one we chose had speakers being installed. We thought they were for the bands on the stage, but no - canned music. When they started up we could hear the canned music, the bands, a jazz band down the street, and a cheerfully crap marching-style band being towed around. Plus, when the wind changed, the singers from the other side of the river. All at once. I didn't survive long, and we went to look for somewhere else to eat. Serendipity struck, and there was a dinky tea-shop. A really real tea-shop with decorated teapots for sale - and decorated everything else you could think of. Very well done, and appealing for that reason, though art-crafty is not my taste. The place had been beautifully renovated. (There is a walled courtyard at the back of the tea-shop, which gave me an idea for the little house across the lane here. It needs a lot of work, and it would make a gorgeous courtyard if the battered roof were just removed instead of mended. I'm not sure my neighbours would approve, though.) The food was delicious, and we even had Cake; the proprietor didn't seem to mind us hanging around, though we'd arrived just before closing time and she had to wait quite a long time for us to finish eating and exploring the things for sale.
Fortified by good food, we returned to see what the bands were up to. Disappointing. We were very tired, too, and it seemed preferable to attempt to get the car out of the closed road and go home. The road was now full of bands and karaoke, all crammed together in full earshot, with tables and chairs outside all the cafés. I wasn't comfortable about trying to drive through, but $Friends politely asked people to move their chairs, and dragged the barrier aside, aided by a lad who jumped up to help. Everyone was perfectly good-natured about it, not even a glare.
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