Goodbyes: France - La Rochelle

As soon as we got off the train in La Rochelle, you could smell the sea air. Great, this is going to be a great stop over, before our next helpx. Just a mere thousand year old city with loads of history awaited our eyes. We dumped our packs off at the hostel and headed back out to have a look around the marina and get some dinner. The marina was huge! never seen so many boats. We decided to get an early night and explore again in the morning.

Boats galore.

and the sun goes down.

We headed into town by foot and got to the tourist office before it opened! So we walked around a little more went and checked out the aquarium which was also closed. Finally headed back to the tourist office to hire the bright yellow bikes. After selecting our perfect wheels, we headed off towards the port. It was around 8 km there via the coastal track. It was very pretty; creamy coloured concrete footpaths winding in and out of the trees, a few birds flapping about and people walking and biking everywhere, the view towards the Atlantic Ocean was beautiful, as was the view back towards Port de Minimes, where our hostel was. The sun was out, but it was a bit breezy - guess that comes with being beside the sea.

This photo of La Rochelle was hanging in the dining room at the hostel,
it shows the size of the marina well, although they are extending it by another 1000 berths,
which will make it 4300 in total. Also you can see the two man made beaches one in the foreground,and one top middle where the city is. The port is well out of the picture to the top left.

Come on sun wake up.

An early slightly chilly morning walk.

Inner harbour closest to the city centre.

Part way along the coastal route.

I just had to try the French Moules Marinieres,
I kid you not there must have been about 150 - 180 of them.
Very small, but sweet and tasty.
Sorry bout the hair do folks, just been biking in the wind!

The port itself wasn't anything to write home about, lots of fishing boats and sheds, and a few people around. We completely missed the Germans u-boat depot which was reasonably close to where we were, which would have been interesting to see. In its day it housed 13 German subs and had a roof of 3.5 m thick concrete and steel. Anyway - we missed it. Just by chance we came a cross a free animal park with birds, ducks, donkeys, deer and goats all in a really nice big treed park. We carried on biking and we found a nice seaside place for lunch and enjoyed a meal. Then headed back into the city to look around. Two of the three famous towers line either side of the entrance to the old port were built in the 14th and 15th century. the other one is along a little bit further - you can see them in the shots above. In the early days of the 10th century, the town was known as a fishing village, and all the fishing boats used to come into the port and unload. So even now there are pockets of boats in these old ports close to the city edge. The walkways twist around the centre as the water does. It is really very pretty. The city itself is laden with beautiful old houses and buildings and a maze of pedestrian streets. there is believe it or not a water taxi which take you from one side to the other - which we took and it lasted maybe 3 minutes - 1 euro each haha! We decided to make good use of the bikes and head out towards the marina. We had a look around the marina and I suggested to Murray that he go and inquire about some jobs for the kids. He went to several places and they all said to get Clive to send his CV. So you never know. There are so many boats here there is bound to be work for both of them too. Certainly think it would be a nice place for them to spend sometime. It has a mixture of old and young people, and quite a big university for the sciences. But only they can decide where they want to go. Anyway we continued on and had a good look at the marina and also went around to the new part, not that we could get as close as Murray would have liked because it was all fenced off, but he saw some 'diggers' at work! We biked back around the point by the big man made beach and then cut across back to return the bikes. We had, had a great day, pretty much been biking all day so many nice things to see it was really pleasant.