Vendee-Vapeur

We had talked about taking the Train Restaurant “Voiture L’Orient Express” which is essentially a steam train which during a three hour journey from the Station at Mortagne-sur-Sevre to Herbiers and back serves dinner. At Herbiers there is a half hour stop to turn the train around for the return journey. En route the train stops for 45 minutes on the impressive 38 meter high Viaduct Barbin which overlooks the Sevre Nantaise and offers spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, or so the official website says.

Unfortunately the website also says that wheelchair access is not available, and although I do not use a wheelchair I am not prepared to patronise places that are so obviously discriminatory. It is a shame as I would have liked to make the train ride, although I wasn’t particularly impressed with the 2 menus on offer.

I can understand that some excursions demand a degree of physical adeptness so I wouldn’t berate them for not necessarily offering the opportunity to disabled people. It is true however that you often find that extreme sports do offer the opportunity to those disabled people who are deemed fit enough. However I wouldn’t put riding on a train eating a meal up there with the likes of white water rafting, sky diving and extreme skiing and in my opinion the time has come when attractions like this train must make whatever alterations are requisite to allow disabled people the same access as their able bodied counterparts.

For this reason I am unable to recommend this gastronomic excursion. I would in fact go further and urge any of you who are thinking of taking this excursion not to go and to make your reasons public.

Tate – 2009.