I was not well last night; when we got back to the hotel I was very tired, had an upset stomach, light headed and during the night had a fever. Dr. Google said it was food poisoning or gastro. I woke up around 5 and didn’t sleep until around 06:30 then the alarm went off at 07:30.
Weather had turned, outside was raining, cloudy and 9c. As we got closer to La Rochelle the clouds cleared and it was sunny, but a bit chilly once we got off the train.
Got the bus to the hotel; we use hotels.com to book and after 10 bookings you get credits, so we were able to book a nice hotel at half the cost. We dropped the bags and walked around the corner to the market, but a lot of stalls were packing up.
There were quite a few restaurants around the market so we stopped at one, I had that traditional French meal of fish and chips, plus a glass of red wine, Song had prawns to start and sausages for main. Mine was very average, get better in Melbourne. The weather had changed again, now it was windy and cloudy, we went back to the hotel but the room wasn’t ready so we went out walking again. Song picked La Rochelle because it was a small town on the coast and fitted in with our loop – we’d not been to the West of France before so the plan was to visit some of the less-touristy places. La Rochelle was amazing – the buildings were clean and old, there were narrow alleyways, cobblestoned roads and lots and lots of nice shops. The walkways in the main part of town were covered with arches.
I guessed that it must be a popular resort place; there were so many restaurants and cafes and boutique shops. We stumbled upon the Hotel De Ville (Town Hall) which was a magnificent building in the centre of town, dating back to the 13th Century and was the oldest town hall in France still used for the original purpose. There was a big fire in 2013 and it was restored, and the carvings on the outside were amazing.
We walked down to the harbour, the entrance guarded by 2 towers, and in the same area an old gate.
The wind picked up and it was getting cold so we went back to the hotel and the room was ready. I asked one of the staff about La Rochelle and she said in the Summer it gets packed, very busy, and is popular with Americans who come on their yachts. So yeah, an up-market resort town.
Rested in the room for a while then went out for a walk, we didn’t get very far because it started to rain and was windy, so went back to the hotel. It cleared up a bit so Song went out again but I was too tired so stayed in the room. Decided not to bother with dinner, Song had some stuff she’d bought in the market but I wasn’t hungry.
Tomorrow we have a full day in La Rochelle, hopefully the weather will be better.