La Rochelle 1

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The trip down to La Rochelle (which means "Little Rock") lasted three hours. Patricia arrived at the train station at the appointed time and it was then we discovered that the there were two other passengers in the small hatchback. Patricia was enroute to visit her grand daughter in La Rochelle and had numerous belated Christmas gifts strewn throughout the car. Jean-Claude, a French/African graduate of transport logistics was another passenger and France, a retired English teacher of Madagascan heritage, was the last fellow traveller. Of course, their luggage was crammed in as well. We repacked the car, organising luggage to maximise space and in order of who would be dropped at their destination first. There wasn't much space left for people despite out best efforts.

Patricia was a master of the autoroutes, the French motorways. She managed the tolls, trucks and other challenges of driving for 3 hours with a carload of people unknown to each other until an hour before and two of whom did not speak her language. Patricia had no English and it was France, as a former English teacher, who did the communicating. Jean-Claude seemed to enjoy practicing his Engish skills with us. We learned that he was presently unemployed after completing a short term contract following his graduation.

Jean-Claude was the first be dropped off, at Portiries. After another hour, France left us but not before she had called our host, John Brondy, in La Rochelle to let him know we were coming and to get an address. It turned out he wasn't home and France spoke to his daughter, who knew nothing about us or the studio apartment we had arranged on the Internet. Nevertheless, we were assured that John would call back when he got home. France thought she might be in La Rochelle on Sunday and we exchanged numbers in case we should try to arrange a meeting. We continued on with Paticia. To aid communication she called her family in La Rochelle who had some very limited English. We were all trying to communicate through the mobile phone on loudspeaker with the GPS adding the odd direction to the conversation as we barrelled on down the autoroute. It turned out that Patricia's relative had only a little more English than she, on par with our French - which is to say "not much".

Eventually, John returned the call and spoke with Patricia. He gave her instructions on how to get to the apartment and she kindly drove us to a nearby car park. Here Patricia asked another couple walking by if they had any English, they did and the five of us walked the short distance to the apartment door, discussing the new couple's son who liked to surf and hoped to go to Australia one day!!

The studio apartment was on the top floor of an old three storey building. It had an ancient and tightly turning staircase to the third floor. The apartment itself is built into the roof space and has a sloping ceiling, which limits headroom in about two thirds of the room. There is a hipped window and a modern skylight set into the ceiling allowing a person to stand upright. An unusual but interesting space.

After settling in the apartment we explored our new surroundings and discovered what an enchanting place is La Rochelle. We are in the old historic part of the town, build around a small rectangular harbour set with locks, to maintain the water level in small adjoining harbours, and framed by two stone towers which formed part of the harbour entrance's old defences. These defences proved necessary over the years as the town changed hands between the French and the English and was a centre of the Huguenots and their stormy relationship with the French monarchy. At night the twin towers guarding the entrance are internally and externally lit and reflect gorgeously in the calm waters of the harbour, which is presently empty of boats while it is deepened. Restaurants lines the harbour walls, with promenades atop. We found a nice spot to admire the view over a shared plate of baked Camembert with salad and potatoes with a glass of red wine. It doesn't really get much better!

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