Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay(Otis Redding)Old town and inner harbour La Rochelle on a sunny day

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We have put quite a few kilometres under our belt over the past 2 days so today is to be one of more relaxation in our enclosed yard at our accommodation, a look around the village and a trip into La Rochelle about 10km away this afternoon.

With the sun shining and prospects of good drying weather it was time to catch up on washing. The only thing we didn’t have was a washing line or clothes horse so Gretchen improvised using coat hangers for shirts etc on a mobile clothes hanger from the bedroom. Such are the talents of a BBA V3 traveller!

It didn’t seem quite appropriate to put the clothes hanger outside in the courtyard but with the huge bi fold doors open the wet clothes would still get good drying conditions.

Carole, our host, bought us firewood for tonight when we expect the temperature will cool again.

After breakfast and our chores were done we took a stroll around the village.

The local church was being prepared for Palm Sunday and a local parishioner was busy with decorating the end of the pews.

The village is located about 5km from the main highway between La Rochelle and Bordeaux and it appears most of the inhabitants work in the city or industries that surround the city.

There are a couple of small chateaus on the outskirts of the village although these appear to be more large homes rather than the stately places that we think of when using the word ‘chateau’ to describe a building.

With the sun shining brightly and the temperature hovering around 20C we enjoyed our lunch outside and even though we were having it at home rather than in the car on the road we still had our usual bread and spreads, ham and cheese plus also sweet treats from the village boulangerie we purchased while we were walking around the village.

We headed off to sightsee around the old town of La Rochelle after lunch.

We had attempted to do this in 2013 when we passed through the area but found the problem of finding a car park in the very narrow and busy streets just too much to overcome.

However this time with Gina guiding us we found a car park down by the old town and harbour in an area that has been redeveloped into inner city apartments from disused storage sheds.

The sunny, warm day had bought our hordes of people to stroll around the historic town harbour basin.

On our way to take in the historic sites we passed a group of spray painters decorating a small number of buildings with graffiti style drawings in what looked like an organised manner. The distinctive smell of the spray paint was heavy in the air even to us as pedestrians and it was no wonder that most of the spray painters had masks on.

Walking around the harbour and past the twin towers that formed part of the city walls and entry to the inner harbour we climbed up to the path that ran along the top of the wall giving an excellent view of the whole area.

Restaurants and bars lined the quay and the locals had seemingly taken up every outside seat taking a late lunch and doing what French people do, people watch. All the seats faced outwards towards the quay in French style. We decided we would leave having a coffee in the same manner until after our walk when the places should have emptied a bit.

At the end of the city wall we climbed down and commenced our return walk back to our starting point but this time via the narrow internal streets adjacent to the harbour. The buildings in these streets were mix of apartments above shops and restaurants and bars.

One of those shops had the most delicious looking Easter eggs of all shapes and designs in one window and in the next window past the entrance were similarly delicious looking sweet treats.

We then came to a large square dominated by the Cathedral St-Louis of La Rochelle.

The cathedral was started in 1742 but like many of the buildings of this size it wasn’t finished until 1784.

It was rather a plain looking building from the exterior being of neo-classical design. However the interior was more interesting with some lovely stained glass panels to admire.

We decided we had tracked far enough away from the harbour quay and so returned in a loop that took us past the local marketplace where the market had recently finished for the day and the street cleaners were hard at work to return the area to a tidy condition after the stall owners had left a fair old mess.

Back at the quay we were deterred by trying to find a spare couple of chairs at a bar to have coffee and take in some people watching like so many other people had been doing when we arrived.

The reason being was that the area along the quay had been transformed into a giant dance stage with music booming out so loud that it was difficult to talk to each other.

We spotted a couple of cafes just far enough away from the music and found a couple of seats to sip coffee and do our people watching so we could finish our afternoon in La Rochelle in the manner we had hoped for earlier.

The coffee was strong and Gretchen was please she asked for a ‘grande’ as the standard French coffee cup would leave you wanting more. I opted for a cappuccino despite the fact that we are in France and not Italy!

The graffiti artists were still at it and the watching crowds had got bigger as we passed back to our car.

During our almost daily visit to the supermarket resulted in the purchase of some tasty looking limousine beef for dinner.

Peter the checkout operator was very interested in our accents and he seemed to enjoy trying out his English on us.

We must say that most of the checkout people that have served us have been very friendly and they seem to appreciate our attempts to at least greet and say farewell in their language.

One observation that we make is the absolute lack of any check of our alcohol purchases which in NZ would require a supervisor be called to the checkout to verify we are old enough to purchase the wine or beer in our trolley! Bring on the days when New Zealanders can be treated like adults when purchasing alcohol.

It had been a lovely relaxing day and we can tick our long desired visit and sightseeing of old La Rochelle off our bucket list.

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