Blog 05: end of July – Nantes, and St-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie to La Rochelle

The trip to and from home for Charles’s op involved several hours to kill in Nantes.  It was a beautiful but rather hot day for tramping around with luggage, but we did take a little stroll up to the Cathedral and Chateau.  This is the view as we emerged from Nantes station …

This is the only original part of the old city wall still remaining …

Nantes Cathedral is massive – it’s hard to get far enough away to take a good photo, and the sun was in the wrong direction too!

Inside though it is beautifully light …

… with elegant soaring columns and a beautiful vaulted ceiling.

This is the Chateau des Ducs de Bretagne and its impressive moat …

Within the castle walls is the Chateau itself …

… and a better view of the Cathedral …

We took it in turns to walk all round the castle walls while the other one guarded the luggage!

The Chateau’s vulnerable entrance was guarded by two towers, called the Doe’s Foot Tower and the Bakery Tower – what random names!!  This is looking down from one of them towards the other one and the drawbridges between them …

Then it was back to the station and off to the airport and home – a tedious journey due to flight delays and rail strikes!

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We’re now back in St-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie with Charles able to see all sorts of things he hadn’t noticed before, including a few more ‘laughter lines’!  The cataract op seems to have been very successful, which is great.

Now I’ve got a chance to explore a bit more, so I set off on my folding bike on the Vendée Vélo trail, a brilliant wide cycle route along the Vendée coast which is a beautiful, but fragile, coastal landscape, now a conservation area with protected status.

This is looking back at St Gilles from the beginning of the Vendée Vélo route – the beaches in the distance are part of the 140km of sandy beaches which extend along the Vendée coast …

This is the nearest nice beach to the town of St Gilles …

This is the first viewpoint on the cycle trail – the Pilours Rocks …

These are some of the seaside houses – from the tiny cottage with the red-tiled roof to quite grand residences side-by-side.  Whatever their size, they all have the same amazing view!

The cycle route continues – this coastline is called the Vendée Corniche and is composed mainly of green shale …

There are many lovely little sandy coves along the way …

The next viewpoint was the Trou du Diable (Devil’s Hole) where the rock has been eroded away to form a clear archway …

… and then Les Cinq Pineaux – five big prominent rocks in a row …

I continued until I reached the Grand Plage de Sion at Saint Hilaire de Riez, which was far enough for today – from here you can see many more miles of sandy beaches stretching into the distance.  You can also see the dark patch of seaweed on the shore – because of the ocean currents, the Bay of Sion is regularly invaded by large volumes of algae and seaweed, which the locals collect both to eat and to fertilise their vegetable gardens …

Now it was time to head back to one of the nice little beaches I’d spotted on my way here – I settled on La Goutaille …

It was nice and sheltered, sandy, uncrowded and good for swimming – the sea was actually really warm.  This is the view from my sunbathing spot …

Back in St Gilles, this is the fishing harbour – these boats are all ‘potting boats’ which lay long lines of lobster pots, marked at each end by a buoy with a flag.  You can see the brightly coloured flags on the boats – strangely they are not so easy to spot out at sea …

This is the Holy Cross Church, which looked as if it had just been cleaned …

Some of the typical blue-shuttered houses in the town …

… and a nice view of Croix-de-Vie on the other side of the river …

Later we went across to Croix-de-Vie and I sampled the famous St Gilles sardines – very tasty …

A lovely stroll back …

… and a tranquil evening in the marina.

The next day we set off early to make the passage to La Rochelle in one day, rather a grey day.  It was very loppy in the narrow and shallow entrance as we went through with the tide close to low-water springs …

After that we had an uneventful motor-sail at 7.5 knots – there were a few yachts about, but the things we had to look out for most were the lobster pots with their little flags, not so easy to spot in a grey sea but there is one in this picture …

It did get sunnier, and also rather choppier …

Here’s Charles looking a bit idiotic wearing the silly mirrored sunglasses that were regurgitated by the tumble dryer in St Gilles!!  I’m positive I checked it was empty beforehand, but these came out hidden in my washing!  Mysterious!  For some reason he seems to like them!

Here we’re approaching the massive bridge that links La Rochelle on the mainland to Ile de Ré …

No matter how much clearance there is, it always feels as if your mast is going to hit the bridge as you get closer …

… and, as you pass underneath, it looks as if the top of the mast is almost touching – but in fact there was probably about 10 metres clearance!

This is the industrial port of La Pallice – the wind has increased and the sea is quite choppy now …

Here’s a tug helping to guide a large tanker into port …

We’re now approaching Les Minimes, Europe’s largest marina – it’s vast!  Apparently there are 5000 berths here now – we’ve been here before and it’s at least twice the size it was then!  The three towers of La Rochelle are in the distance …

Getting alongside was quite a challenge with the wind and tide pushing us away from the pontoon, but there were plenty of people offering to take ropes and we got safely moored, then went for a brief walk round the headland.  This is the lovely sandy beach and Astraia is somewhere among that forest of masts beyond!  I’ll start to explore La Rochelle tomorrow.