French Island hopping, picnic under lighthouse, aquarium and crepes for dinner

Near La Rochelle is an island, which I am very sorry to say, I have forgotten the name of (shame on me) but this was our destination today. It was another bloody hot day, requiring from me a hat (I brought one yesterday thankfully!) and a bottle of sun cream to be applied. Chris of course just chucks a t shirt on and is fine, no burning or blistering for him, no no, just a lovely deep brown tan that is coming along nicely thank you. Hmph. We stopped off for breakfast by the port, which had a very chilled out feel to it, then made our way to a little supermarket where we picked up some more French goodies for our picnic lunch.

We drove around the island for some time, looking at old salt mills, sea salt farms, forts etc before making our way to the light house which was quite impressive. Here we decided to stop and have our picnic lunch, baguettes, pate, cheese, salami, gherkins, and tomatoes, all very very yummy to say the least! The Salami I could eat forever, it is so good!! We also brought some cider to share and it was quite refreshing on such a HOT day. We moved into the shade as the sun was just toooooo hot for us and after a while, moved on to have a look (a proper one) at the light house.

One ice-cream and many photos later we moved on to a little sea salt stand by the road where you can pick this gourmet, high quality salt up for around $3-$5, however, if you were to buy the same amount in Australia it can cost $50-$100, so we brought a bag or two here! After this, the sun had taken it out of us in a big way. Kris, Chris, Zoe and I all fell asleep in the car as poor old Paul drove us back to La Rochelle, I’m just thankful that he didn’t fall asleep too!

To cool down we decided to go to the Aquarium, which I have to say, was wonderful! All sorts of amazing fish, sharks, jelly fish, sea horses etc, and it was set up in a very friendly, nice way with a great atmosphere. Chris and I really enjoyed ourselves here, plus it had air conditioning so we were very happy!

Dinner was in order after our exit from here so we decided to have crepes, another French cuisine, sort of like very thin pancakes that are filled with yummy bits and bobs. Ham, cheese or egg, or pear, blue cheese, nuts etc or something more interesting like intestines (not for me thank you) It was a light yummy meal that went well with our earlier picnic. A few drinks and a dessert later we were ready to head ‘home’ to relax, shower and sleep. The sun can really take it out of you here!

written by

Chris and Emily on June 16, 2009 from La Rochelle, France

from the travel blog: Europe 2009

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