Sunday August 17, 2014

We were awake at 7:00 am this seems to be our new time of waking up.  It is getting dark earlier and light later.  We said our goodbyes to Francesca and Mathieu. Francesca was the last one to emerge from her tent but the first one to be packed and ready to go.  She was going to get breakfast at the supermarket. Mathieu was still packing up as we left.  We no doubt will see them later in the day as we are all heading for La Rochelle.

We stopped to take photos of Ile de Re at the same time as another couple of French touring cyclists were taking photos of the Ile.  We chatted to them for a while, they too are going to La Rochelle.

Today\’s route was very rural, fields and fields of sunflowers and corn. When we lived in Germany there was fields of sunflowers and we never seemed to photograph at the right time.  These are past their prime for photographs, but we always seem to see one late bloomer.

It was very flat, probably one of our flattest days yet on the Tour, along canals and dykes.

The route was quite well signed and we have now gone into a new Department (municipality).  We stopped in the Town of Marrens hoping to get some lunch, but the boulangerie did not make sandwiches and we really couldn’t be bothered to buy ham from the small market stall and a baguette and make our own.  We really have become accustomed to having butter on our bread again.  The Town looked rather run-down, but there were thousands if not millions of dollars worth of yachts moored up.

We passed another family of four who were also going to La Rochelle.  I was beginning to worry we wouldn’t be able to find a campsite.

We made good time today, although it was a little windy for the last 10 kms or so. We are lucky because we can take it in turns to be at the front.  When we spoke to Mathieu and Francesca at the campsite, later on, they both complained about the wind. We stopped on the outskirts of La Rochelle for a sandwich and carried on into La Rochelle.  We noticed Francesca heading into Town so we caught up with her and I took the lead for a while.  We headed for the Tourisme Office, I knew there were two municipal campsites in Town and one more campsite about another 10 kms out of Town.  Fortunately, one of the municipal campsites had spaces available so the three of us headed out to it, as fast as we could to make sure they still had sites when we got there.

There are some awesome buildings in this Town, we will check them out in the morning.

Francesca’s site is not near us tonight but Mathieu has the site next to ours.  Mathieu is staying an extra night here.  We will probably see Francesca tomorrow on the road.