Untukmu Para Pengunjung

Another year, this time I tried the new lens..

UPDATE 14 Sept 09: They have scrapped flights, see my post about Ryanair stopping flights to La Rochelle

Just looking at various sites and could find nothing to explain the sudden apparent loss of Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday flights from La Rochelle to London Stansted. This post is purely to see if anyone has any inside knowledge and indeed want to start a conversation as to why Ryanair appear to have stopped flying from London to La Rochelle on Saturdays.

It must be a marketing ploy, I can think of no other reason..

BTW I stopped writing regualar posts on this La Rochelle blog as I felt I covered most subjects but if anyone wishes, it can continue.

UPDATE 14 Sept 09: They have scrapped flights, see my post about Ryanair stopping flights to La Rochelle

Today, Saturday the 21st June is a great day to be in La Rochelle. It is the annual "fete de la musique". What does this mean?

Every year on solstice day France celebrates with a huge music festival. Now, dear reader, when I say huge, I mean massive. Last year there were around 3-500,000 watching the bands in the streets. La Rochelle is a reasonable large city and just about every square will have a band in it, starting from 10am today lasting until 2am in the morning. Click here to open the pdf agenda.

Pictures and videos will follow tomorrow.

Rock on!

So here are some snaps of what went on this weekend in La Rochelle.

Tip for the organiser of the carnival, please do try to get the "floats" and bands/people walking closer to one and other, waiting 20 mins between some "floats" was too much for the average viewer. It made the entire parade take over two hours to pass us and must have been an age for those waiting at the old Port in the centre of La Rochelle!

All in all a reasonable day out, just could be more local businesses involved and a better website promoting it, maybe they could ask me next year to help?!














Waiting for the parade to catch up!

Last weekend we visited the beautiful city of Angouleme, it is about 1hr45mins drive from La Rochelle.

We went to the Gastronomades. This is a great example of how things differ here in France. Everywhere was free to enter and all about food!

We watched a really classy demonstration of how to produce spectacular Japanese food, by the highest rated Japanese chef in France. He prepared this freshly under the drooling gazes of 300 people. My son won the opportunity to sample the most expensive dish on any menu by winning with a raffle ticket given out on entering the hall, Sylvie also won with the next drawn ticket, you couldn't make it up!

So this post is more about photo's than words:-


This was a chocolatier demonstrating how to carve chocolate!

Today means another early start for me. The La Rochelle Marathon, 3rd largest in France, is this morning.

In 2006 the weather was beautiful, large crowds and bands on every street corner, this year the weather is a bit grim, raining and cool, it probably suits the professionals. Will it suit the crowds?

I shall be staying at home for the first hour and half because it passes by my front door and well, I can drink my black coffee and watch in comfort. You can watch the streaming video here, I will post up photos later:-

marathon live video
Finishing between the towers

Every finisher gets their own pack of oysters!

Today was one of those days where you crave fresh crisp air and clean away the internal cobwebs of life. Whilst I enjoyed Vegas, the networking and meeting great people, I really missed fresh air and fresh oysters. I am lucky that I live just ten minutes walk from the sea in La Rochelle, I say lucky, it has been hard work getting here and there is a certain amount of emotion leaving your home country but after a day like today, I have no regrets!

Oysters are everywhere in La Rochelle, and when the tide is out, the farms are revealed. The rules are that each person is allowed to scavenge 5 kilos per day but not from 20 meters of an oyster farm.


The oyster beds are about 1 mile out to sea, yes, that far. The farmers store the oysters in special sacks while they grow.


These sacks are kept on racks sunk into the ocean bed


So, we keep well clear of them! They also store mussels too..


Walking to the part we are allowed to take them from takes about ten minutes at a brisk pace! When you arrive, you see a bed of oysters, some empty, some full! While searching you must keep an eye on the tide..


My collection today in the bag

Walking back with the sun slowly setting..


Back home and after cleaning the shells


And finally, the succulent meat..wonderful.


Have you ever tried oysters? What did you think?