La Rochelle, a seaport in the Vendée region
La Rochelle is famous for its monumental fortifications. The tower on the right is called Tour de la Chaîne because a thick chain was stretched across the entrance of the harbour to keep out enemy ships. Once a Protestant stronghold, it was often attacked during the Wars of Religion. We visited La Rochelle and nearby Saintes in early June 2005.
The sea used to reach the foot of this Gothic tower, a lighthouse called Tour de la Lanterne, where our grey car is parked.
The entrance to the old quarter, La Porte de la Grosse-Horloge
The waterfront is lined with seafood restaurants. We lunched on raw oysters, sea snails and prawns, and grilled sardines (on the left).
The old city is famous for its arcades.
This arch seems to have needed some extra support, a few centuries ago...
Valentino makes use of the doggy toilet - an original idea, but you don't see many of them
Saintes, a town in the Charentes region
South and inland from La Rochelle, in the Charente region, is Saintes, famous for its Roman ruins and beautiful medieval churches. It was called Mediolanum Santonum.
The Roman arena, with the Cathedral in the background.
L'Abbaye des Dames, with its ornate medieval carvings
The crypt of the Église de Saint-Eutrope contains the relics of Saint Eutropius, who converted the Gauls.
It is one of the oldest churches in France, built between the 6th and 11th centuries.
The Arch of Germanicus is a Roman gate dedicated to the Emperor Tiberius (Germanicus was just his nephew, but his name is the one that stuck) on the road connecting Lyon and Bordeaux. It was built closer to the river, at the head of a Roman bridge (now destroyed), and had to be moved to its current site in the 19th century when the city was modernized.
It may seem surprising, but the man who saved the arch from demolition was Prosper Merimée, the man who wrote the novel Carmen later adapted by Bizet for his opera. His love of art and history led him to become the first-ever official in charge of the conservation of France's ancient monuments, in 1834. The Roman arch of Saintes is only one of the many ancient and medieval gems whose existence we owe to this great writer and traveller, at a time when churches, monasteries, walled towns and palaces were being swept aside to make way for modern progress.
Rochefort
Nearby is the town of Rochefort, built on an estuary near the sea. It is famous for the 17th century rope-makng factory called La Corderie Royale, where pieces of rope as long as this building were braided by what for the time was very high-tech machinery. Good and plentiful rope was important for sailing vessels such as the one whose masts can be seen over the roof, waiting at dock for its coils of rope, no doubt...
We stayed with our friends Danielle and François, in Saintes. One evening we dined on "la mouclade", a local dish of baby mussels in a creamy sauce, indescribably good...
Adieu, Saintes - one of the prettiest towns in France, I think.
A stop on the way home to visit the lovely interior of the Cathedral of Nantes, recently and beautifully restored
On the way back to we also visited Annick, my croney from 20 years back in the Latin Quarter, at her cottage in La Pierre Percée (near Nantes). The hat is hers and she stuck it on my head for a joke!
