Sunny time, Ile de Re and La Rochelle...it's a seafood orgy!

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Our next stop is just a short 90 minutes drive to the West, on the Atlantic Coast. This time, we are spending the evening and night in La Rochelle, and the day on Ile de Re. I had teenager souvenirs of La Rochelle, but Ile de Re is a first for me.

We are so lucky with the weather. We are enjoying July weather, but we are only in middle April, the crowds are simply not yet here, and this is amazing.

After our visit of Hennessy in Cognac, we took the road to La Rochelle. We had booked a small hotel a minute walk from the Old Port. Slight problems, all streets are one-way here, and I forgot to print the exact address of ther hotel (I know, brillant idea!). But after a little while, we managed to find it. The aim of the visit was to walk around town and the Old Port, but most important, to enjoy some great seafood on the Old Port.

The seafood was indeed pretty amazing. We limited ourselves to oysters, mussels and some fish soup. After 2 days of eating a lot, we wanted to try to keep it "light"...well, the light food will have to wait after our little French escapade. Another great dinner, another nice bottle of wine in the room, and we were on for a pretty early night.

I know, we don't do parties at night anymore...well, at least not as often as we were used to. Early morning rise and the joy of the bedroom seems to have made us pretty lazy to dance on tables till the end of the night...are we getting old? Or are we enjoying too gorgeous meals too often?

So another early rise after nice croissants in bed...this morning we are heading to Ile de Re. The Island is the Hamptons of France, but in April, crowds are still pretty thin, and this is perfect for us.

We headed first to the little village/port of La Flotte. We bumped into the local market and decided we had to organize a little picnic. Bear in mind the we are pretty organize, we are travelling with our fridge box, our champagne/wine glasses, and even our oyster knife to open...a lot of oysters! This little market is wonderful, oysters, anchovies, seafood salad, tomatoes, french bread, melons from Charente. Ok, one sad thing, driving or drinking in France doesn't match, so no bubbles, no little Sancerre for lunch! Snif!

We spent our day going around the island. We visited later on the main lighthouse of the Island, the Phare des Baleines (Lighthouse of the Whales), but also had a little walk around Saint-Martin-de-Re. The little city of Saint-Martin-de-Re is another little port, the difference here is the city has been fortified by the french architect Vauban, a pretty nice job he did here.

The best part of the day must have been the picnic, on the beach, and a beach with only us on it! We had only one regret this week, we didn't expected the weather to reach temperatures between 25 to 28 degrees every day. We are properly equipped for a mild spring weather, but not really for an early summer. Mari would have loved to have her little summer dresses, and me something else than jeans or a suit for me! But hey, isn't it better than rainy cold weather!

Our next stop is South to share some great time with friends I haven't seen for a while. You may already guess where we are going...day by day, the diet will....well, who cares, as long as we are having so much fun!

Coming back soon, with more sunny pictures!

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