Blogs from Poitou-Charentes, France, Europe - page 18

With some sun finally breaking through I took a trip out to the Ile de Re. As the bus curves over the bridge to the island the whole of the bay is laid out below, big ships at anchor, the Lavardin Tower light seemingly directly below and 5 or 6 miles to the south the big square block of Fort Boyard (unfortunately no sign of Melinda Messenger or Lesley Grantham...) between the flat, tree-lined Iles d'Aix and d'Oleron. A small tour of the island follows giving if othing else an appreciation of how much prettier St Martin (my destination) is compared to the rest of the rather functional holiday-home-esque villages on Re. It seems the past inhabitants of St Martin didn't get on with outside world too well. The town is surrounded by huge defensive walls ... read more

Egg #2. It's me again, with a little update from La Rochelle, on the West coast of France about half way up. Unfortunately I don’t have any near death experiences to tell you about this time, but I’ll do my best to make something up if I feel that its getting a bit tame. La Rochelle is a med sized harbour town. How to describe La Rochelle?……. I’d say: nautical, fresh, pretty, well maintained, sunny, pleasant, nautical, white, nautical, bright, breezy, nautical. And just erring slightly on the side of ‘retirement home’. So, what’s with the nautical malarky? (readers voice). Well, to say that Portland Bill and Captain Pugwash probably went to school here could be the understatement of the year. There’s a port here called ‘Les Minimes’ ……… more like ‘Les Maximes’ - there’s at ... read more