h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Just had a mini-break to La Rochelle, courtesy of Ryanair, which conveniently leaves from my local airport (Stansted – I do feel sorry for the tourists who haven’t done their research and think they’re going to arrive in London!). I was in la belle France from Monday afternoon to Thursday lunchtime, and could easily have stayed a day or two longer without getting bored!

The airport in La Rochelle is little more than a shed in a field, and I was horrified to find there wasn’t even an ATM – luckily the bus into town only cost €1.20, as I only had about €5 in total! Slight panic when the first two cash machines I tried in town wouldn’t accept my card either, but then the one at the post office saved me!

The bus into Place de Verdun takes less than 15 minutes – even better than Biarritz, where the airport is about 25 minutes by bus from the centre. Found my hotel, right on the Vieux Port, quiet room away from the street, and went for an exploratory walk, which is what I always like to do when I arrive in a new place. The old town is a mass of higgledy-piggledy little streets, just behind my hotel, and it took me a while to find my way round.

Tuesday: went on a visite guidée of the old town. A two-hour walking tour with a guide from the tourist office. She was very knowledgeable and there was a good balance of history/explanation and walking. Some beautiful old buildings and some which have been very well restored. There is an interesting variant on half-timbered façades – where you would see wooden beams on English buildings, in La Rochelle there are lines of overlapping slates, allowing the water to run off.

One of my favourite buildings was the Maison Henri II, where he is supposed to have installed his mistress Diane de Poitiers. There was a little garden in the courtyard, divided by box hedges, but instead of flowers or herbs, it was full of tomatoes, peppers, aubergines, chillies, chard and other veg – complete with a straw scarecrow!

In the afternoon I sat in the shade and read my book. Chatted to a couple from Birmingham who came and sat on the same bench and expressed shock that I was travelling alone. Actually I prefer it – am I very selfish, I wonder? There seem to be a lot of Brits around, and plenty of estate agents advertising in English.

Wednesday: got the bus at about 9.30am to the Ile de Ré. There are seven or eight villages on the island and the bus route goes round most of them, but the buses are only about every hour, so I got off at Ste Marie and hired a bike. There are plenty of cycle routes, some of them alongside the main roads, others through the vineyards and fields. Occasionally the signs were difficult to find, and at one point on the way back to Ste Marie in the afternoon, there were about 8 cyclists all looking for the green signs to the ‘piste cyclable’! I cycled through Le Bois Plage (great market, had a nice salad with grilled, very fresh fish for lunch), La Couarde, St Martin, La Flotte and back to Ste Marie – about 30 km in total, which won’t sound much to some people, but it was very hot! Due to plentiful slopping on of factor 25 and my trusty sunhat, I didn’t get burnt.

Finished up at the beach at Ste Marie – it had been too hot to go swimming earlier in the day, and now the tide was too far out. So didn’t manage to get my swim in the sea this year!
Returned the bike and got back to the main square just around the time the 5.30 bus should have been leaving – but a couple then came along and told me that they had been dropped off outside the village – the bus couldn’t get in because of roadworks. The bus company hadn’t bothered to tell the tourist office this important fact, so it was just as well I met them, since the next bus (an hour later) was the last one of the day to La Rochelle!

So, all in all, wonderful weather, beautiful town, great food and wine – only thing missing was a swim in the sea, and I can probably live with that (although the beaches in Biarritz where I have been before at this time of year, are brilliant!).

Wow! you are so spontaneous - quite the opposite to Susan and I. I never travel, and on the rare occasions that I absolutely must have a night away from home I start packing (for a three-day absence, minimum) several days in advance. Susan gets sent on holiday from time to time, and the group I pack her off with generally start their planning 8 - 12 months in advance, and spend most of their social time together during that period leading up to the holiday talking about nothing else. Susan, however, avoids this excess, wanting only some time off, some places to see, some good food, some good wine (decent local beers also appreciated).

Susan is going off to Spain in a fortnight's time. Her spending money was set aside last January, and will be converted into Euros next Saturday.

Douglas

Douglas

Well it had been planned for about a month, I guess. That's a big advantage of living so near Stansted. I usually go on the Ryanair and Easyjet websites and just browse for cheap flights for places I fancy exploring. That's how I discovered Biarritz a couple of years ago and really loved it.