Go Your Own Way(Fleetwood Mac) On further south to Salles-sur-Mer

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We decided that Saint Nazaire is a lot larger in size than we had thought, after the day we spent here in 2013 while we waited for our Citroen to have some repair work done to a fault in the braking system. Then we had wandered what we thought was the main shopping area and a promenade that circled a bay near the entrance to the harbour.

Last night’s arrival proved us wrong as the city stretches out a fair way and there is significant construction going on that is going to make the population larger in years to come.

So we had to devise a plan to get ourselves to the beach, drive the promenade that we had walked around and then head south towards La Rochelle and our next accommodations.

Over breakfast which included toast from our toaster despite the small room with what looked like a very reliable smoke alarm (how could we forget Cumbernaud 2013!)we devised a plan for the day. The dispersal of any smoke from the toaster was aided to a great extent by an ultra high speed expelair in the small kitchen area!

Getting to the beach appeared straightforward except none of the roads we chose went directly there. We hadn’t used Gina for this exercise and perhaps we should have. Eventually we made it to the sheltered beach that was named after the strong tides and rips that were evident from the shore. Gun emplacements from WW2 were sited above the beach pointing out to the English Channel.

These legacies of WW2 seem to be in many locations we have visited especially the coastal parts. So while the Germans thought they built a defence all around the coast facing England to defend Europe from the Allies all the concrete, guns and ammunition didn’t work in the end.

The promenade was as we remembered it as was the road that took us past the docks and ship building site and onto what has to be one of the most impressive road bridges we have driven over.

When it was built in 1975 it was the world’s longest cable stayed bridge. The road climbs well above the channel it bridges and way in excess of the height of any ships likely to have to pass underneath.

Traffic on the bridge drives very orderly and although there are good, strong looking barriers to the outside it is an awful drop to the sea if you miscalculated.

We came back to the seaside at Pornic a pretty riverside town with access to the sea past a seawall for the small yachts anchored in the basin in the town. It was now nearly midday and the temperature had climbed to 16C.What was in store for the afternoon we wondered?

The coastal D38 bought us to Notre-Dame-de-Monts and again need to search for a road to take us onto the actual coastline for a stop for lunch.

Driving past shuttered up houses and through a small shopping area with a couple of restaurants open we came to a splendid and well organised promenade almost totally bereft of people.

We found a seat with a lovely view out over the sparkling sea and ate our usual lunch with our sweet treat of ‘Nid De Paques Chocolat’, roughly translated means Chocolate Easter Nest. And as always, so far, it was delicious and a total overkill in chocolate.

The buildings that lined the street back from the promenade all appeared to be for holidaymakers and were shuttered up. It is amazing to think that the owners, if they rent out the apartments, and make their money in such a short season of having them open, perhaps between May and September.

Even though we were at the beachside the car temperature recorded 17C after we got underway and soon climbed to 18C.Things were warming up as we drove on south through the land known as the ‘Marais Breton’. It is an area that stretches back a fair way from the coast that is quite wet with pockets of small lakes and canals that have been built to move water in a more orderly fashion and allow some of the land to be farmed.

Interestingly we passed a number of houses with thatched roofs which are out of character with the dominant tiled roof. It wasn’t a method of construction that we thought might not have been used here.

We passed by the small seaside location of St Hilaire-de-Riez where we stayed in 2013 and onto a mid afternoon stop in Les Sables-d’Olonne.After thinking we had found a parking space alongside the harbour we discovered that it was for locals with prepaid badges and although there didn’t appear to be anyone patrolling for miscreant parkers we thought better and drove on further.

This turned out to be a bonus as just around the corner from the free car park was a gracefully curved beach with a raised promenade and holidaymakers(mostly elderly)and probably locals enjoying the now 19C temperature on a glorious spring afternoon watching the surfers trying their luck in the small surf.

Taking a stroll along the promenade the desire for the first ice cream of the BBA V3 with the temperature hovering around 20C became a reality when Gretchen spotted a sign ahead.

The first flavour to be tested was fraise with chocolate chip and peppermint. It sounds an odd concoction but it went down well.

Walking back to the car we dropped in games of boules being played in a small square. None of the smoothly manicured surfaces the club at home seem to have to have. The games were being played on a hard surface and the boules tended to roll rather than being thrown with a twist of the wrist and stopping almost straight away when they hit the surface.

The last part of the run towards La Rochelle and a supermarket stop was around the Pertuis d’Antioche and across farmland that was flat for as far as the eye could see.

We thought that it was like driving in the states of Kansas or Oklahoma in USA where hills are not in sight for many miles.

We arrived into the outskirts of La Rochelle as the drive home for workers meant that traffic in the opposite direction to us was very heavy. Not that this mattered to us until we found that Leclerc supermarket was on the other side of the road and we were going to have to find a way across and join the outflow from La Rochelle.

At the traffic light just past the supermarket and although there was a no U turn sign the car in front of us gave it a go and got away with it while we opted for a side street and approach the supermarket from a different road.

Walking to the door of the supermarket a small, elderly French lady spoke to us as she struggled with her shopping trolley.

Some sign language revealed she would appreciate a hand in lifting her car boot to enable her to pack her goods away.

It is amazing what you can manage with a little sign language.

She expressed her thanks with a couple of ‘merci beaucoup’, which of course we understood.

Our Air BnB accommodation is at the small village commune of Salles-sur-Mer and our host Carole arrived shortly after we had found the key under the green pot as her instructions had said.

Her apartment attached to her home built in 1868 looks ideal for us and this is going to be another place that will be hard to leave after our 3 days.

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Comments

[KJ]

Where does the English Channel actually start?
Enjoyed the read today and I accept I never did study Geography but just wondered about the gun placements on the West Coast of France in relation to the English Channel?

[Whiskers]

The English Channel
Yes,we have always wondered too.When writing the blog there is the occasional reference to Mr Google to be done and it always mentions the English Channel rather than say the Bay of Biscay which we think is a more local name for the body of water above the northern coast of Spain.Of course the Channel Islands of Jersey and Guernsey are close to the western side of France.A book I am reading on the British raid on St Nazaire in 1942 refers to the sea off the city they attacked as The English Channel.