Chef de Baie, La Rochelle
We’re now in La Rochelle; we did pass through here once before, riding a 2 wheeled BMW that time! It’s a real tourist spot and deservedly so. Our first 2 nights are spent on the car park of the Lycee Hotelier, which is given over to motorhomes in July and August. It’s about a 1km walk into the town along the sea wall, very pleasant in the sun with a gentle sea breeze blowing. The last 2 nights we spend at the Chef de Baie on another designated spot, this time about 200mts from the sandy beach, so we plan to be back here next week for a while with Antonio, our 6 year old grandson. This spot, about 5kms from the centre, is well placed for country walks and cycling.
spotted on the Ile de Re!
We’re spending the weekend on the Ile de Re, just a 3kms ride (and €16.50!) over the bridge from La Rochelle. It’s very flat here so we’ve found that, when walking, we’re more likely to be mown down by bikes than cars! Cyclists are well catered for here, with trails whenever possible, bearing in mind that the roads are quite narrow on this small island, which is roughly 5kms wide by 35kms long. All the campsites are full, as are the official Aires (all €10 for 24 hours, the campsite down the road from us is €42+ for 3 people!); there are several parking areas dotted around, specifically for motorhomes, but overnight camping on these is strictly forbidden. We, along with several other ‘van owners, found a large, undesignated, car park on the outskirts of Martray and this has been our base for the 3 days. We spent most of Friday and Saturday walking the footpaths and on the beach round here. Today (Sunday) we drove around the parts which we missed on Friday morning, but most of the villages around the coast are inaccessible with the ‘van. We ended up on ‘van parking about 1.5kms outside the main town, St. Martin de Re, where we had lunch at a harbour restaurant, but got wet through on the trek back to the ‘van because the heavens opened and our macs and brollies just managed to keep our top halves dry! It’s a bastion town, double walled, and looks as if there used to be a moat.
A quick trip over the bridge and we’re back in La Rochelle, where John stayed with the ‘van while I flew home to collect Antonio, who will spend the next 2 weeks with us, something we’ve been looking forward to since we left in May. We landed at 6 p.m. and took a taxi back to the ‘van because, at this time of day, campervan parking is at a real premium as the locals come down to the beach in their cars and take the ‘van spaces too, so John had to stay put rather than meet us and then have nowhere to park. After a quick meal it was down to the beach with a very excited little boy, where we had great fun jumping around in the waves.
We took a hide-and-seek walk along the cliffs this morning, followed by more beach time after lunch but, on our return, found several new “neighbours” had moved onto the parking from their encampment a couple of miles away so it was time to begin our journey north. We spent the night on the coast about 15kms north of La Rochelle.
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