Arrival in Cognac - the biggest small town in France

The drive to Cognac.  Each Chateau is announced on it's own decorative sign.

Sunny weather as usual on the drive to Cognac.

We arrived in Cognac mid-afternoon.  Our guidebook described Cognac as a "small town in the French countryside."  Our first observation was that Cognac was one of the biggest settlements we had come across since leaving Paris.  We certainly would have described it as a "small city".  It had traffic lights, for example.

The <<small town>> of Cognac

Cognac city center

We swiftly navigated ourselves downtown to find our hotel, the Ibis Cognac.  Waiting for us in front of the hotel was a parking place not 15 meters from the front entrance.  And although as a small city Cognac had time-limited pay parking in some areas, the parking in front of the hotel would allow us to park for the duration of our two-night stay in The City of Designer Brandy.

Ibis Cognac hotel.  Our car is the one in the middle.

Check-in was swift and we were soon in our room on the ground floor.  I cannot recall the last time I had a ground floor room in a multi-story hotel.  The room was pleasantly larger than the room in La Rochelle and the space was used very effectively.  A desk/counter ran the full width of the room along the window leaving plenty of space for our electronics, guidebooks, receipts and other junk.  The bathroom had a stall shower and a separate toiilet room.  And the sink had a counter (not a pedestal sink - yay!).

Our room at the Ibis Cognac

Bathroom - sink and shower (non-pedestal sink)

Separate toilet room = good.  Total lack of ventilation = less good.

Best of all our room at the Ibis was only two blocks from the city center and also two blocks from the Martell distillery (Cognacerie as we like to say.  If we visited Champagneries in the Champagne region, then we're definitely visiting Cognaceries in the Cognac region.)  Martell would be our first distillery stop in Cognac.