Tag: France

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Fouras

We moved down the coast a little to Fouras, where we discovered that someone had taken away the parking meter for the aire de camping car, so we get a night for free! We walked 5 km along the coast and checked out the town. It turned out that Fouras holds an annual windsurfing race around fort Boyard and it was the following day, so that’s us sorted then!

The other thing that Fouras is known for is it’s shallow sandy bay. This means that there are oyster beds all over than place that are tended to at low tide and also a walkway to fort Enet 2km in the bay that is also only exposed at low tide. 

T checked the tide table and determined that we needed to depart at 10AM the next day so it was wine and pasta for dins and a movie. At the anointed time the next day we cycled around the bay and set out with the oyster-men for the fort. Late September so the tourist population was thin. All the time we were walking to the fort and our main concern was making sure that there was someone further out to sea than us as we were not sure how long we would have to beat the tide. But we had them about spot on and we got to the fort and wandered around and looked across to Fort Boyard (yes, that fort Boyard)

There are various boat trips out to Boyard from Fouras and also from La Rochelle and other seaside towns in the area. But the boat trips are expensive at 30€ plus each and you can’t even get off and see the fort, so we could not quite justify it. Instead, from fort Enet, you can just about see the fort in the photos. It’s in private ownership, so there are no tours anyway. 

And then a brisk walk back to the mainland and around the bay to Fouras beach and watched the preparations for the Fort Boyard Challenge. We didn’t get to see the main event but the warm-ups were pretty cool.

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La Rochelle

A few wonderful days in La Rochelle. We stayed in the Port Neuf area, which is to the west of the town. We found a cracking site for about 10€ a day including electrical hookup. We got set up and got the bikes out. The first evening was punctuated by the sounds of rugby – the stadium was nearby and there was a big game on!

Day one we mooched around, we did a circuit of the harbour – no mean feat, it’s about 20 km in all. Looking across the harbour, there is a massive sea of masts, there must be a thousand boats at least. Day two we we visited the Maritime museum, the famous towers, the aquarium and a few other things too. It was clear that two days does not allow enough time to do justice to the wonderful town so it became a four day mini adventure in all. 

The maritime museum has a meteorological research ship, a trawler and a tugboat to look around plus a whole bunch of land based artefacts celebrating La Rochelle and her most famous maritime sons and daughters.

We expected the aquarium to be a bit of a tourist trap but ended up spending a few hours looking a various denizens of the deep. They have a couple of grey sharks and one highlight was walking on a rope bridge over a tank of piranha.

Over the few days we also fitted in the F1 Grand Prix. We worked our way around a french launderette (losing 4€ in the process) and we even had a meal in a restaurant: Moules frites for T and a burger for S. When we planned the big adventure we agreed that restaurant meals are a treat and not the norm!

One trip that T dad recommended was a boat trip to Ile de Ré. The boat will take bikes, but the timings in late September didn’t really work for us and it was pretty expensive, so that’s our next stop – rather than visiting by boat we’ll visit via mothership!

The site was camping Port de Neuf: 6 Boulevard Aristide Rondeau, 17000 La Rochelle

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Niort

We left St Amand Magnazeix about midday as we spent about two hours working with the layout of the bikes on the rack (yes, it’s a tough life) – but we do now have a rear view from the camera – thanks to Toby’s dad!

Our first bit of péage as the section of the A10 from Poitiers to Niort cost 14€. Normally we will avoid toll roads, but today it suited us to get to Niort and get sorted.

A quick trip to the Tourist Information Office and we know what the town has to offer. An uneventful evening, Selina made some headway in the ‘European Scrabble Challenge’. Scottish smoked salmon in the van and the Gendarmerie came by at 9:15 in the morning collecting the site fees.

Wandering around plus visits to museums and churches the following day and a huge omelette in the van for dinner. Friday we head over in the direction of La Rochelle taking in ‘Green Venice’ on the way.

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A week in St Amand Magnazeix

A great chance to catch up with Toby’s dad and unwind. Not that we had anything to unwind from, but it was great to be chilled out for a week. We took the Kayak on the lake, we cycled about 80km during the week and we even got a drone shot of the Mothership. We also reminded ourselves that we are rubbish at ten pin bowling!

Limousin is very brown at the moment – the area has been very short of rain this year. Just a couple of pictures to show of the week. We went out for a few meals: of special mention, the Restaurant Le viaduc at Busseau-Sur-Creuse: www.restaurant-leviaduc.com We had a wonderful meal and an awesome view of the 1863 built viaduct.