La Rochelle is a town on the West Coast of France. It is a large harbour town, and at one point in its history it was the largest harbour in France.
Driving into the town is relatively simple, the car parks are well signposted, and we decided to park right on the harbour front. The charges for the car park were very reasonable, at least compared to car parks where I live; it was just a couple of Euros for a full day.
From the harbour car park we walked approximately 10 minutes into the shopping precinct. There was a small outdoor market in the centre, mainly selling fruit and vegetables. There was also an indoor market which also has fruits and vegetables, but also a selection of stalls selling all manner of cheese. Meat stalls with cooked and raw meats, including chickens that looked extremely unappetising due to the fact they still had their feet attached! Best of all, the market had a lovely selection of sweet and chocolate stalls. These were not cheap by any stretch of the imagination, my daughter bought herself a chocolate rose which was about the same diameter as a 50 pence piece and it cost 2, 50€, whilst my son bought a chocolate bar about the same size and thickness as a Wispa, only when he bit into it, it was marshmallow inside, this cost him 3€.
After leaving the market we took a walk further into the town to the ‘ordinary’ shops. The streets were the nice quaint streets you’d expect from an historic town, a little like the Shambles in York, only not quite as narrow. This oldie worldie feel is spoiled somewhat by the shops themselves, for example as we turned into one street there was a lovely building on the corner which was crafted in a Tudor style (or whatever the French equivalent is called), only to have a luminous Game sign right next to it. Whilst I can understand that companies want to keep the same image the world over, I don’t think it’s too much to ask that they blend their signage to match the local area.
Wandering aimlessly around the narrow streets, we came upon what must be the designer area, the streets gave way to covered walkways, and the prices in the shops rocketed. They were lovely shops to look around, but far too expensive for the likes of me.
Despite the area being a tourist area there were very few souvenir style shops, and apart from Game and a couple of other international businesses, most of the shops were (or looked to be) small stores owned by locals.
Having had our fill of shopping, and after almost getting mown down by a bendy bus, we decided it was time to head back toward the harbour and visit one of the many restaurants that line the harbour front. A lot of the restaurants/cafes specialise in seafood, which is no great surprise considering their location, but we were only after a midday snack, so stopped at a cafe selling baguettes and pastries. The prices in the restaurants all seemed pretty much of a muchness, and our lunch cost 8€ per adult and 6€ per child, and this included a baguette of your choice, a cake or pastry of your choice and a can of pop. The only problem we had was due to our lack of French, and we didn’t know how to say we would be sitting outside, and ended up with our baguettes and pastries in takeaway bags rather than on plates, but we still sat out at the front anyway and no one seemed to bother.
After lunch it was time for a walk around the harbour itself, and a look in a couple of the souvenir shops which were close to the cafes. The shops sold pretty standard fare for souvenir shops, lots of decorated shells, key rings with names on, leather and silver jewellery and maritime souvenirs; because we had such a poor exchange rate they were all rather expensive.
After having a pleasant stroll around the harbour we walked over to one of the harbour towers and decided to take a look around. It wasn’t too expensive at 6€ for an adult, with under 18s and students free (with a valid student card), so we only had to pay for 3 adults. You can also buy discounted tickets if you wish to visit all three towers; however we decided just to stick with Tour Saint Nicolas. Tour Saint Nicolas is the largest of the 3 towers, and is on the south side of the harbour. The inside of the tower isn’t overly impressive, it’s basically solid walls with the occasional stone frieze, there’s a large circular room about half way up, which has some little snippets of information, and a few rooms such as the captain’s watch room and guard room, but none of them have been decorated in any way, they are just bare stone walls.
The first sections are easy to walk up, but then you get to the first set of spiral stairs. Now I’m not keen on spiral stairs because I never feel safe on them and luckily these are not too steep. You emerge on to what must have been the walkway for archers, as there were archery slits all around (I know, I know, but I’m not really au fait with these sorts of things), and the view over La Rochelle was amazing. We actually thought we’d reached the top, until one of the kids shouted down from higher up.
So after doing a full circuit of that terrace we eventually found the entrance to the top level, and if the view from the terrace below was great, the one from the top was amazing, you could see right across the bay and right across the town. They had installed a telescope at the top, but it wasn’t very well positioned for adults. There was a step for children to stand on, and if an adult used this they ended up having to squat whilst using the telescope, standing on the floor though meant that you were too low down and only looked at the sky. The spiral staircase to the top floor was much steeper, and I’m glad there was no one to pass on the stairs because I would not have been able to move over to the narrow section.
We did notice some names scrawled into the walls as we were wandering round, and immediately thought it was your usual scumbags who couldn’t give a damn about anything, but we actually found out that in previous centuries it was used as a prison, and it was actually the prisoners who’d scratched their names into the walls. Further up the tower some of the names scrawled alongside dates from the World War II era.
There are written guides in English to take around with you that give you some of the historical background on the towers and the ownership of the towers between England and France. The entrance and exit serve as a small gift shop as well, but it was ridiculously expensive, cheap plastic swords that you’d begrudge paying a pound for in England were priced between 10€ and 15€.
After our visit to the tower we headed back around the harbour, and found a row of cafes painted in a Balamory style, we stopped for ice creams and they were some of the nicest ice creams I’ve tasted (of course I had to sample the kids as well as my own!). There weren’t cheap at 2, 50€ for a single scoop, but they were really creamy and full of flavour.
By this time we were ready for home, but there were plenty of other things to do at La Rochelle. There were cycles to hire, and boat rides to Fort Boyard (yes, the one from the TV show), there were also guided tours of the town (daytime, evening and gastronomic), and guided tours of the Town Hall and close to the aquarium and the towers is the Maritime Museum, which is onboard two ships the ‘France 1’ the last meteorological ship (weather observation vessel) and ‘l' Angoumois’, a fishing trawler. All the different tours and the Museum cost between 6€ and 11€, the evening tour of La Rochelle being the most expensive at 11€, the boat trip to Fort Boyard was approximately 18€ for adults but as the harbour is tidal you’d have to check the sailing times in advance.
All in all it was a lovely little town, the cost of the Tour Saint Nicolas was worth it just for the view, and there were plenty of lovely little shops for the shopaholics amongst you. Also one of the most noticeable things about the town as a whole was its cleanliness, not a bit of doggy do to be seen and no litter on the streets.
From journal Trip to France West Coast