We said our goodbyes, and Bonnie and I went on foot to explore
the historic old town, despite it being well over 90F and humid.
First we visited the St. John baptistry, which she'd been to
before and which now costs money, so I just poked my nose in and
said enough. It's the oldest Christian church building outside
the Middle East so is a historic spot, but I wasn't turned on.

The cathedral was however pretty impressive, and we spent a
little bit of time there. The other famous ecclesiastical
monument is the church of Ste. Irmegonde not too far away,
so we went. It's actually interesting in an unprepossessing way,
but while we were there disaster struck. The heat and the stale
paella combined to make for an untenable situation. So. There was
a bar across from the church, which I ran to and found permanently
closed. No taxis in sight, and we were way on the other side of
town from our hotel, the Ibis Budget Poitiers Centre Gare. Getting
there was one of the longest half hours of my life, let's just
say. To clarify, the physical distress wasn't mine, but the
caretakerly distress was. Eventually, going as fast as we could
and taking a shortcut called l'escalier du diable (the devil's
staircase), we achieved our goal.

It's a decent if budget hotel (I chose it because of its
proximity to the train and its cheapness), but luckily it has
respectable bathroom facilities.

We didn't feel like much, but after her loss of food, we went off
in search of more - the Ibis is budgety enough that if you don't
want snacks out of a bag out of a vending machine, you have to go
elsewhere. There is a place that gets good reviews right opposite
the train station, the Express or something, but when we found it
it turned out to be run by a bunch of Arabs, not that that's
intrinsically bad, except you can't get beer or wine.

We stumbled on a real bar, La Printanie, run by a Chinese lady
who basically spoke neither French nor English, and her half-
European son with whom I could communicate in French.

I got a bunch of Stellas in succession, and Bonnie matched me
in kirs. At some point peckishness took over, and we inquired
about food. The only thing among the premade list that appealed
to Bonnie was the croque monsieur, which we ordered to split.
It was okay, and everything was about E3, so we got out for
maybe 10-20% of what a real meal would cost in a real restaurant.
Toward the end of our stay some guy ordered egg rolls, and the
smell of braised cabbage filled the place, drowning out the
previous smell of cigarette smoke.

Bed was welcome, and there were no more disasters.
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