La Baule to L'Eguile to Bordeaux (LBP)

La Baule has a daily market which provided our provisions for lunch: more ham, more bread, some carrot salad. The weather was fine, and we started our drive early (after pains au chocolat, coffee and sausage, of course). Another long driving day. Lunch in La Roche, a town that Napolean made prosperous, and thus the giant statue of the little man in whose shadow we had lunch. And, in whose shadow there is a cute little skate park.

The goal of the day was Rochefort, well placed down the coastline, not as scary-big of a city as La Rochelle. We get there, it is raining, we search for the tourist-info office, get disheartened by the dreariness, and decide to drive on. We get to Royan, we search for the tourist-info office, get disheartened and frustrated by CRAZY driving in pouring rain, and turn around towards a small farming village halfway from Rochefort. We get back to the town, whose name turns out to be L’Eguile (French for: the Eguile). There are two places to stay: a chambres-d’hote at the edge of town, and a Bar-Restaurant-Hotel in the center. Since it is raining, and we don’t want to have to drive to dinner, we opt for the BRH in the center. Cheap, cheap room. We drop our stuff off, and then, since it miraculously stopped raining, went for a walk.


L’Eguile is situated in an oyster farming region at the confluence of a couple of rivers and estuarial action from the ocean. Thus the small houses and farms alternate with inlets of water with little shacks and boats. It’s really quite picturesque. For my parents, we went into the little town cemetery and looked at grave stones (Mom, Dad, aren‘t you proud?).

Smoking! Cats! Oh my!

We got back to our hotel, cum bar, cum restaurant, to find the bar full of old men. As we sat and nursed some beer, some lit up and enjoyed their gauloises (apparently the reach of the ministry of health doesn’t quite make it this far). As the full complement of older men showed up, they made their way back to the restaurant, where they all sat at a long table and had dinner with their gauloises keeping them constant company. This combined with the cat that came and sat our bench with us, made us realize that we might have made a somewhat poor choice. (Remember, Kate is the person who detests smoking cats)

We walked to the nearest restaurant (the only other restaurant in town that was open) to find the staff still enjoying their meal, we asked, and found out that they open for business at 7p. It was 6.55p. We walked away, looked at the port a little, and then walked back. The staff was done with their dinner and the door was open.

Kate now blogging
This is a nice restaurant. A really nice restaurant. I find myself wondering if we accidentally ended up in the region’s version of Yountville. We are in a tiny town, and yet here is this nice, big, lovely restaurant. There has got to be a story. We walk into the place, clearly the first 2 customers of the day and we are followed by a well dressed older man. I immediately am concerned we really have happened onto the French laundry and our jeans are an insult. It turn outs the older man is British, also a tourist of sorts and more than happy to join us for dinner. Praise be!

Someone who wants to spend an evening talking to us in English. Our new friend is named Ray, and he claims to be the most boring man in England, although after an evening of lovely conversation we have to disagree. He laughs at our jokes and is impressed by Andrew’s French. Thus, we like him. Kate taught him the phrase, “brain fart” and immediately regretted it. We had a glorious evening, good food, nice wine, lovely company and a view of the port. What else can one ask for in life? Well, actually we have an answer to that question: one can ask for a comfortable bed in a smoke and cat free, quiet room. Alas, we got only the dinner part.

The next day may not be worth describing. The main points: Grumpy sleepy Kate. Sleepy Andrew. Drive to Bordeaux. This involved a ferry ride across the Gironde. Kate remembers none of this. She also doesn’t remember the lovely wine country chateaux we passed, nor the lunch in a small town square. She does however, remember the fact that for the second time in her life she wandered, for hours, the streets of Bordeaux looking for a hotel with a room available. She also remembers telling Andrew before they left for Bordeaux that this might happen. She has not yet said, “I told you so”, but she really wanted to. With the help of the tourist office we eventually did find a clean, cheap hotel on the other side of the river from Bordeaux proper. There was a Japanese restaurant nearby, it was good.


Bordeaux was lovely. We were sleepy. Bordeaux is a lovely place to be sleepy. That’s pretty much what we did in Bordeaux.