It was a bit of wrench leaving our hotel in Solidor, St Malo
and the hotel. We had a lovely view of
the seaside from the bedroom window. Despite
not having a proper shower the bed was the first to have blankets on it which
meant one could manage the warmth better.
The hotels and the B&B at
Bruges were all well heated which was very nice and I can see why people who
come to Wellington or NZ for that matter find our winters so cold as we do not
have them as well insulated as the ones in France or the UK and we don’t tend
to heat the home as a whole.
After breakfast we quickly walked around the little
bay. It was very pretty and I would have
liked more time to explore the area. The
last time I was in the area all I got to see was Intra-muros, the old
city.
As Bev had not been around the city we quickly went around
the remparts before having a nice coffee in a little boulangerie that we found in
our wanderings. We needed to leave at
about 11:30am to get to our apartment in La Rochelle where we were to be given
a tour by the owner’s helper.
We missed that deadline by about fifteen minutes but I
figured that being on the autoroutes would help us make up the time. As it turned out the time prediction by the
Navman was accurate. The route took us
through Rennes and Nantes. In Nantes we
went over yet another amazing bridge which went over the Loire river.
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| Intra-muros |
As I did not know the word I assumed the worst, and that was
the car was going to stop due to a lack of oil.
I have now realised that it meant oil change but at the time I thought I
was going to have a broken car. So I
found a service station, got some oil for the car and poured it in. That all took about half an hour as I had to
figure out a few things in a foreign language while worrying as to whether we
would get to the apartment at near the appointed time.
Veronica took us on some rather round about route it seemed
to La Rochelle but we eventually got to the right street and Madame was outside
in the cold waiting for us. She then
took us for an extended tour of the apartment and the garage, all the while
looking at Bev who could not understand a word she was saying while at the same
time hoping I was translating for her.
In the meantime I was having difficulty with the speed and accent and
she seemed confused with my attempts to communicate. Occasionally she would respond to a question,
like where was the Le Grand Surface.
Regularly she would ring the owner.
After about half an hour I handed over the money but she thought it was
not enough because I had not given her the caution (a deposit in case of damage
to the apartment). That resulted in
another panicked call to the owner who informed her that one was not
needed. Finally she handed over the keys
and left.
There was a supermarket down the road similar to New World Metro and we got a few
supplies including a welcome bottle of wine, a cheap red.
For dinner I heated up a bought fish pie (morue, a salt
cod) and some broccoli. By the time we
had unpacked, put the washing on and had a meal I was ready for bed and
sleep.
Yesterday, 6 January, was to be a day of rest. It turned out
to be that way for the most part although I did not get much of my book read.
I wanted to go to a Grand Surface as the range of things is
much greater and while I remembered that
in France the supermarkets close for part of Sunday I did not realise
that it was for the whole day. In fact,
the whole of France seems to close down on Sunday. The local supermarket was open for a few
hours in the morning but not the Grand Surfaces.
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| Vieux Port - La Rochelle |
We took the little electric powered ferry from the northern
side of the Vieux Port. It was very cute
and a nice way to get quickly from one side of the port to the other. The wharf for it was literally at the end of
our street.
The rest of the day was spent writing the blog and then cooking a light meal of Puy Lentils and sausage.
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