La Rochelle and Ile de Re


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Europe » France » Poitou-Charentes » La Rochelle
November 22nd 2012
Published: November 22nd 2012
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Monday 17/09/12 La Rochelle



K&O are going back home today but as they have a late flight out of Orly we had time to go up to Le Mans for a quick look. Marnie had recommended us to see the old town and as it was just 45 minutes up the road we were off.



OK, it was worth a look but as Lyn and I were heading in the opposite direction I didn’t enjoy it as I probably should have if I had had more time. We walked around for an hour but then we said good bye to our friends and set our GPS for La Rochelle while they stayed for lunch and then drove up to Paris.



In La Rochelle we went straight to the tourist info only to be told that there was a big Boat Show in town that week, so accommodation was hard to find. As we planned to stay at least 4 days we wanted an apartment and that made it even more difficult. After a while a very helpful girl found us a place called Maeva only two blocks away and very central but they could only take us for two nights. That turned out to be OK as Maeva was a very boring modern style “motel” although in the middle of town. We didn’t like it much but at least we had roof over our heads and we would keep looking tomorrow.



La Rochelle is a very charming harbour town, more yachts than commercial vessels though. The whole harbour area is lined with restaurants and all the side streets are also filled with bars and eateries. The lady in Angers who sold us all the pates and rillettes had told us about it and she said that L.R is the town where most French people want to live. I can understand that.



Once we had settled in our box we went for a first walk around town, admiring the ramparts and the mighty towers in the harbour but it was clear that it would not be easy to decide where to eat. There is so much to choose from and the prices are still very reasonable, even in a tourist town like this. We looked at 5-6 restaurants, side by side, that all looked interesting but eventually we decided on L’Aurais where I had a delicious Tuna-and-Swordfish brochette and Lyn had Roast Cod with those yummy little potatoes that are a speciality from around here.



We also happened to be seated next to an elderly Norwegian couple from Asker who were there on a bicycle holiday. They told us about some other small towns down the coast that they had visited and that they recommended us to see.







Tuesday 18/09/12 La Rochelle



We had to find somewhere else to live and the Norwegians had told us of their hotel in the centre of town so we started there. Unfortunately that was fully booked but they directed us to another hotel which was also full and then we tried 3 or 4 more before we found one called Hotel de France where they had a very nice but very small room for 170 euros/night. That’s a bit expensive but we almost decided to take it. However the receptionist told us about an apartment hotel down towards the harbour so we decided to check that one out before we made our final decision.



We had only walked half way there when I spotted another hotel called Le Gabut which was advertising apartments for weekly rentals. Well, we did plan to stay four nights so we went in and asked and the very enthusiastic Pascal told us she had an apartment for three days. On closer inspection it was quite awesome. It was on the second floor overlooking the marina and the Maritime Museum and it had a roomy kitchen and plenty of space. It was more than three times the size of the hotel room and it would cost us 83 euros/night! Perfect!



Very pleased with ourselves we celebrated with a huge seafood lunch at Restaurant Andre, well for me it turned into 4 courses as I ordered 6 oysters from three different areas, one here in La Rochelle and two from Galway in Ireland(!)



Later, back at Maeva we started to pack for tomorrows departure and plugged in the computer for charging as we do almost every night.



Dinner was a picnic down by the harbour with nothing but fresh prawns with mayo and bread and of course a bottle of wine. It must have looked nice because a Brazilian guy stopped and asked if he could take our photo. He said it looked so typically French. Maybe he was a bit disappointed when we told him we were Australian.



When we got back to the hotel we discovered that the laptop was totally dead although it was still plugged in. We got a bit worried but decided to wait til tomorrow to see what happened.







Wednesday 19/09/12 La Rochelle



Well, nothing happened. The computer was totally dead and that was a bit of a worry as we are actually using it every day and feel quite helpless without it. We had also started the process of hiring a houseboat for later this month so we really needed to be online.



When we checked out from Maeva the receptionist directed us towards a big commercial area in the outskirts of town where she thought we could find someone who could help us.



When we got there we found no computer shop. It was a big area and after walked around inside and driven around outside we stopped at an electronics shop which, as it turned out, was specialising in model aircrafts and things like that. We realised that this was not the right place but we went in and asked them if they knew where we could go to get help. The guy asked what the problem was and after some conversation with a mate and a phone call by another mate he dug out a charger and plugged it in and Voila, it worked! It was only totally discharged. Apparently it hadn’t been charging during the night for some reason.



Very relieved we went back into town and checked in at Le Gabut. What a great room it is! As we were unpacking a big two-masted sailing ship comes in and moors pretty much under our window!



On the way home last night we passed a little restaurant. Outside it had a blackboard with the lunch menu which said Spaghetti with Parma Ham and Girolles. This sounded too good to pass so in we went and the meal was just as good as it sounded. La Ragazzi as the restaurant was called specialised in AOC food so the Parma ham was from Parma and so on. It was a casual laid back place with a crowd of “alternative” customers, a bit different from the touristy style only 200 meters away but the food was absolutely fantastic!



The rest of the afternoon we spent walking around and looking at La Rochelle. We went down to the main marina which was a bit industrial and looked at the apartment hotel we were recommended yesterday and thanked our lucky stars that we stumbled on Le Gabut first. An exceptionally boring building facing a demolition site in an industrial area.



We watched how the two draw bridges opened to let yachts out and wondered how this lady with the red suitcase would make it to the train in time if the bridges didn’t come down. We walked a detour to come to the very impressive train station where the TGV was ready to leave. Seconds before the train left the lady with the red suitcase comes running and makes it just in time. To Lynette’s great joy and relief!



We stopped at a small supermarket to buy some ham and celeriac and we had a light ham salad at home for dinner.







Thursday 20/09/12 La Rochelle



The lady in Angers who told us about La Rochelle also said that we have to see Ile de Re. It’s a small island connected to the mainland with a 3 km long bridge and it’s a very popular tourist destination. As we have a few more days unplanned we decided to go over and have a look.



It’s less than an hour drive from La Rochelle and we had planned to park the car and hire some bikes to ride around a bit but when we arrived in St Martin de Re it was such a pretty little town with a small harbour totally lined with restaurants so we realised that it probably wouldn’t be a lot of bike riding. We strolled around the harbour and once again marvelled at the difference between low and high tide. All the boats were now pretty much sitting in the mud in the harbour.



For lunch we decided on a tiny restaurant called Avant le Port and we were sitting outside in the sun and had a Monkfish Tartare for entrée and a grilled “Maigret” with an onion and tomato sauce with tiny little local potatoes. We drank a Sauvignon Blanc from Blaye.





After lunch we discovered the local market hall, and we were almost crying when we saw all the beautiful food. I think this is when we decided that we must come back and spend a few days here later in the week.



We needed some exercise so we walked around the old ramparts to the citadel. It was a bit funny, because although it was on the map it was not at all mentioned among the attractions of the town. We soon discovered why. It is still a working prison, so it was of course totally out of bounds and not much of a tourist attraction.



Next we got back in the car and drove out to the westernmost tip of the island, looked at the ancient “locks” built by hand stone by stone without any cement to catch fish with the help of the tide. We also climbed the massive big light house, 267 steps, and took some more photos of the locks.



It was getting late but we didn’t want to go back to LR for dinner so we drove to another of the small towns on the island called La Flotte. It also had a small fishing port lined with nice restaurants so we decided to stay here for dinner. We decided on a restaurant called L’Escale where we had a Fish Soup for entrée and a very tasty Paella for main course. We drank one of the local white wines with this and we were positively surprised. Earlier during our trip along the Loire we have been told that the wines out here on the coast are not very good and they don’t have an AOC, but the wine we had was very good and went very well with the seafood.







Friday 21/09/12 La Rochelle



The Norwegian bikers had told us about a small town just south of LR called Chatelaillon and we wanted to see what it was like.



It was less than half an hours drive and we found a classic beach resort kind of town. It has a very long sandy beach lined by a typical promenade and several smallish hotels. Most of them two star family hotels and many of them slightly tired memories of a bygone era.



Market was on though and we bought some bits and pieces and then we walked down to the beach where we had spotted a café/restaurant that was actually on the beach. It reminded us a lot of a similar bar on a beach in Portugal many years ago.



We have had very few negative eating experiences since we came to France but this was one. The meal we got was very different to what we ordered, basically the same but with different condiments. The explanation from the waiter was that the version on the menu (painted on the window) was yesterdays… Apart from this the portions was also very small so all in all it was not a memorable meal but the view was great. We took several photos with super zoom of the people who were out picking oysters and mussels on the low tide.



We then went for a walk in the mud along the beach and tried to determine if the tide was still going out or if it was coming in. No idea but good fun.



We then drove another few km down the coast to the next little town called Fouras which was similar to Chatelaillon but lacking its charm. It is a little bit famous though. Just outside Fouras is an old fort out in the water. It’s an oval shaped fort with no towers or anything, it looks like a giant sardine tin and it was used in a Swedish version of “Robinson” – “Fångarna på fortet”.



We just had a coffee on the beach and a small drive around before we went back to LR.







Saturday 22/09/12 La Rochelle



We really wanted to go back to Ile de Re and as we had 5 more days before we were to meet K&O in Cognac we tried to book a room in a hotel called Le Mole. We had spotted it on our previous visit and the website also looked very nice. But we could not get a room for the Saturday night though, so we had to stay another night at Le Gabut in LR which was OK but we had to change room. That was OK but we lost our beautiful view…



Saturday is market day in LR and what a market it was! The old covered market hall was not nearly big enough so the stalls spread out on the side streets in all directions. Here the focus was on food and there was not very much of the flea market junk we have seen in some markets. Everything looked fresh and delicious and it was impossible not to buy stuff here. We decided to have a picnic lunch and bought some quiches and other small goodies and then we found a couple of guys selling wine from the Charente region. This in itself needs a chapter of its own about AOC or not AOC, about new grape varieties and aggressive marketing. Needless to say we bought a couple of bottles and went down to the harbour where we sat on the quay and stuffed ourselves in the sunshine.



Life is good sometimes.



We had heard of some great “spectacle” that were due to take place tonight as it was the end of the big boat show. What we had heard was something about a parade of boats and some light show. We also knew that the drawbridge to the inner harbour would be raised from 20.30 – that’s all we knew. We noticed that people were taking up positions along the waterfront already around three o’clock so we figured it was gonna be pretty big. At about seven we walked the 200 m or so from our hotel to where the spectacle should be and it was by now almost packed. No way we could have had our cheese picnic here.



The parade started while it was still light and it was maybe twenty or so yachts that came into the harbour inlet where we were and were introduced by a commentator – mildly interesting, then there was the fisheries inspectors in fast zodiacs – wow! And a group of paddle surfers were introduced…



Then, for some reason, as the sun went down, there was this tugboat with half a dozen Brazilian samba girls on board! It cruised slowly very near to the shore so the 100 or so people who sat there got a great view and the other 5000 saw nothing! What Brazilian dancing girls has to do with a French boat show we will never know, but if my command of French didn’t let me down completely I think it had something to do with the next Olympics(?)



But then it got serious. Like something out of “Pirates of the Carribean”, slowly, slowly the “Belem” comes sailing in. She is a magnificent old three masted tall ship and she glided in to the harbour illuminated in different colours from spotlights on shore. Stunningly beautiful!



And then hell broke loose! The most amazing display of fireworks I have ever seen lit up the sky and when they said it was choreographed to music they meant it. Imagine fireworks to AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”. It’s impossible to describe fireworks but this was sensational. Pieces went off from several locations around the harbour in all different angles and then spotlights and lasers used the smoke as screens for their display. It looked great and it went on for a good hour!



I don’t know how big this boat show is but it certainly ended with a bang!



After all this, our little cheese board at home at 11.30 almost seemed a bit anticlimactic as our last meal in La Rochelle.







Sunday 23/09/12 Ile de Ré



Bye, Bye La Rochelle and Hello again Ile de Ré!



We could not pick up our keys until one o’clock so we started with a leftovers picnic on the seafront and checked out bike hire for tomorrow – 21 euros for three days, and later after we had checked in and unpacked and marvelled at the view from our window over the Atlantic we went for a stroll in the harbour. We are now in the small town of La Flotte and also here there is a very healthy amount of good restaurants. We started with an aperitif served by a waiter who made a point of not looking at what he did whether it was taking an order, serving it or take the money.



A bit later we had dinner at “Les Pieds Dans l’Eau” (next to a very loud Englishman). I had a huge bowl of delicious mussels and I got tiny little potatoes instead of the frites they normally offer here. Lynette had fresh sardines with white beans which were not the kind of beans she had read about but nevertheless quite nice. Of course we drank a local white wine with this.







Monday 24/09/12 La Flotte, Ile de Ré



The day started with a light rain but we went to the market and bought some (Russian) Girolles and some lovely looking Salmon Cannelloni which turned out to be very expensive – 54 euros.



By the time we went to pick up our bikes they had closed for lunch but the rain had stopped so I took the opportunity to go for a run along the beach. That’s when I noticed that I have put on weight. I could feel that there was more weight to be lifted by every step. Got to do something about that…



For lunch we just had some take away baguettes and then we got our bikes and headed out to have a look at the more unprotected south western side of the island. It is so unprotected that St Marie is set about half a km in from the coast which means it lacks the harbour ambiance of St Martin and La Flotte. We continued to Le Bois where there was a huge long sandy beach, known as one of Europes best surf spots. Today, in very windy conditions there were no surfies but lots of kite surfers. Back on the bikes and after sheltering under some trees during a shower, across to St Martin were we had a beer at one of the few open cafes on the harbour.



Back home after about 14 km on the bikes we fried our Girolles in lots of butter and had them on toast for entrée and then we had the Salmon Cannelloni with some Champagne from Blin. Not bad!







Tuesday 25/09/12 La Flotte, Ile de Ré



It was raining again today so we stayed in most of the morning. A bit later we rode a few km out of town to the ruins of an old abbey high up on a cliff and on the way home we rode past a 5-star hotel called The Richelieu. Lynette found to her amazement that they had a spa where you could get a seaweed treatment called Thalassotherapy with a product called Thalgo. Something Lyn normally pays a fortune for and this is apparently where it comes from. Wow!



Anyway, the restaurant looked awesome so we asked if we could book a table for dinner but they were unfortunately fully booked so we settled for tomorrow lunch instead.



Lunch at home was the leftover Cannelloni and dinner later that evening became a little dilemma as the restaurant Lyn had picked out earlier was really cold. It was still raining and it was quite windy so I suggested we would go somewhere else. A quick dash to the end of the harbour strip took us to Le Nautic, a tiny little restaurant with low roof space and timber tables and benches. The owner welcomed us and gave us a table and the menus but then he sat down at the bar and watched TV. We could not see the TV but we heard that it was some sort of sport but without any spectator noise. After quite some time and after a few mates had popped in to check the score he finally took our orders. While we were having our entrees “Basil” went out to clear the outside tables and I went up to have a look at the TV. He was watching Poker! No wonder we couldn’t hear any spectators!



All this was just a fun side show. The food was very good, I had a fish soup, Lyn had a salad with chevre and whitlof and we both had some magnificent grilled sardines for main course and we had yummy crepes for dessert and all that costed 17.90 euro/head! With pre-dinner drinks, a bottle of wine, two coffees and a cognac we paid all together 71 euros! That’s A$ 89.00!



We didn’t want to go straight home so we walked 200 m to a little bar called Le Bariole where the spirits seemed to be high. There was smoking and drinking and laughing so we went in and ordered some drinks and almost immediately everyone left! Quick smellcheck of armpits was OK but it turned out it was one party of workmates or something and their bus had just arrived to pick them up. Two minutes later, even the two old blokes at the end of the bar left and we were left alone. So much for night life in La Flotte…



One good thing came out of that visit though. They were playing some really good reggae music in the bar and when we heard a reggae version of “Je ne regrette rien” we asked the barman who it was and he said it was Danakil, a French artist who is the best I’ve heard since Bob Marley.







Wednsday 26/09/12 La Flotte, Ile de Ré



For some reason we slept in a bit this morning. We were awake at about 8 but went back to sleep in spite of a fly over by the French Air Force. Next time we woke up was when our landlady almost walked in because we had left our keys on the outside of the door. Half past nine!



Time then for our 5-star lunch at the Richelieu.



There was only three other guests in the restaurant so we had all the attention of the waiters. We ordered the three-course lunch where the entrée was a Pastry Base with an Onion Confit topped by mixed Mushrooms and Lobster. Totally delicious!



The main course was a grilled Sea Bass with an Oyster Hollandaise and those yummy little spuds and for dessert we got a selection of Crème Brule, Brownie with Caramel Sauce, Fresh Raspberries and Vanilla Ice Cream.



Everything tasted great and Lyn found the Oyster Hollandaise was a great way to taste oyster without actually eating them. The waiter recommended a Chardonnay/Pinot blend from de Vendee region and although it was only 20 euro it worked really well with our seafood. We finished off with coffee and I splashed out with a 25 euro Frapin Cognac. In the end that turned into a 5 euro cognac as they forgot to charge us for the wine!



After a lunch like that we needed some exercise so we got on our bikes and followed the coast to the ruin of the Abbey. We got some nice photos in the late afternoon sun and continued along the north coast to the third of the small harbour villages. It was very low tide and the oyster farms were exposed and we got some more arty photos of boats on dry land and of the bridge to the mainland. Returning back to La Flotte we rode through the forest and got a different view all together.



This was our last day on Ile de Ré and it has been an unforgettable experience. It is such a perfect combination of tranquillity and tourism. There are enough tourists to justify lots of good restaurants but still quiet enough to be totally relaxing. The changing of the tide never stops to amaze me and even on a rainy day the island is beautiful.



Hotel Le Molé is also a gem. It is in the middle of the restaurant strip with a breathtaking view of the ocean. (If you get the right room of course). We had a small apartment with a kitchenette so self catering is an alternative when you don’t want restaurant food.



We really didn’t want to leave!

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