Noting how compact the room is at Premier Classe Chateauroux, the accommodation has done the job. With air-conditioning and black-out blinds I woke then went straight back to sleep for a great night's sleep. This morning there is less packing as there is a breakfast included. Bread and cake with coffee, cereal, juice and yogurt are available and it's enough.
Today will be another warm day, but we're on the final leg to Constant, little more than three hours away. Alternatively, we could have travelled directly from Paris, but that would have been a long day. Initially, we join the A20 which has tolls but the GPS says it's toll-free. I will check later.
We reach Limoges in no time but I have a detour in mind, setting course for Oradour-sur-Glane and a rather sad piece of history. We reach the village and park paying the 4 Euro fee. It's now a short walk to the Oradour-sur-Glane Memorial Museum which opened in 1999. Entry is free. Here the reception area has a bookshop and a description of why the memorial exists. My reason for coming here is due to a long held desire to visit the site of a tragic piece of history relating to WWII.
Wikipedia states that on 10 June 1944, four days after D-Day, the village of Oradour-sur-Glane in Haute-Vienne in Nazi-occupied France was destroyed when 642 civilians, including non-combatant men, women, and children, were massacred by a German Waffen-SS company. The execution was retribution in the form of collective punishment for Resistance activity in the area, including the capture and subsequent execution of Sturmbannfuhrer Helmut Kampfe, the 3rd Battalion commander of 4th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment. Subsequently, The Germans murdered everyone they found in the village at the time, as well as people brought in from the surrounding area. The death toll includes people who were merely passing by in the village at the time of the SS company's arrival. Men were brought into barns and sheds where they were shot in the legs and doused with petroleum before the barns were set on fire. Women and children were herded into a church that was set on fire; those who tried to escape through the windows were machine-gunned. Extensive looting took place.
As a result of the massacre, the village was never repopulated, but neither was the village demolished, left exactly as it was after the tragedy. Now, from the entrance of the memorial you can walk through the village up to the old church and over to the cemetery, The walk is solemn and thought-provoking to all who visit here, not only the French who were so badly affected by the war.
I spend a good hour here at the hottest time of day but my discomfort bares nothing compared with those who suffered on the 10th of June 1944. It's time to complete the journey, using the N21, then taking minor roads to Constant from Perigueux.
After adding fuel it's with great relief to reach Constant and the complex looks impressive. I came here once before but so long ago, I don't remember it. We check in at room 9, Sauternes and the accommodation is top-drawer, even better than at Tigh Mor. We waste no time settling in, but the end of the day is marked by exhaustion from the visit to the memorial. It takes me all evening to recover. Still, it's so good to be here.

Source: Visit