La Rochelle to St. Nazaire

 Once again we left in overcast and cool conditions. La Rochelle is a very cool place, we enjoyed it there immensely. Today we had about 230km to travel and we selected country roads to keep us near the coastline. The trouble with country roads is gas stations are few and far between. I thought I had plenty of gas but as the miles slid by, my range anxiety grew. In the end we stopped and I googled gas stations. There was one just a few km up the road, out of our way but not too far. When we got there it was busy so we queued up, the man in front tried to explain something to us and drove off. Sure enough the pump was out of order. To cut a long story short we visited 3 more gas stations, all of them very busy and the result the same for us, no gas of the type we needed.  Finally we got gas and Tomtom showed us the way to get back on track. Unfortunately getting back on track meant narrow little roads not much better than a farm track.

 We did finally get back on track, so 2 hours after leaving La Rochelle we had covered around 30km. 

Onwards we went and we pulled into a little seaside village and found a little cafe for a much needed coffee.  

This whole area has a much different feel to it than La Rochelle. Camp grounds absolutely everywhere. They had swimming pools and lots of family activities. Families were making the most of the beach and the last of the holidays. Think Mt Maunganui vs Waitarere. 

Our next challenge on our country road ramble was road works. There was a diversion sign so we followed it, unfortunately that was it, you’re on your own mate. I don’t know how many extra km we did but it was a few, all on narrow back country lanes. 

Back on the road we came to the small seaside resort town of  Pornic, stunning location and people everywhere. Possibly a mini version of La Rochelle. 

No time to stop, we headed to our destination for the night St. Nazaire. Up ahead and looming large was a massive bridge. An absolute monster. Up and up we went, nose bleed territory. Quite a blustery wind up there too.  I’d hate to be there when it was really windy. The view (if you could bear to look down) was spectacular. 


We could see the massive port of St Nazaire.  Incredibly big ships in dock and the biggest gantry cranes I have ever seen. And then in the distance a plane was taking off. I am not exaggerating when I say I’ve never seen such a monster. ( the photo above has the plane in it) 

We rocked up the hotel about 5:30, we’re both pretty stuffed so we found a nice Vietnamese restaurant about 5 minutes walk away and then called it a night. 

It has an autumn feel about it now and the leaves are changing colour. 


Comments

  1. RickAugust 28, 2025 at 12:03 PM

    Yip that's a big plane Airbus Beluga XL. It will cease operating this year. Of course the Russians have a bigger one https://worldaviationato.com/en/largest-aircraft-in-the-world/

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

St Claude to Manigod

Image
 Only around 140km today but very very windy on our chosen route. Today we wind up into the foot hills of the French alps where we will spend a few days. Chris and Karen have hired a house here and have kindly invited us to stay.  The terrain is lovely very reminiscent of Switzerland which I guess is hardly surprising as we are close to the border. Lovely forests and pretty green meadows.  All the little villages are out of story books and are kept in absolutely pristine condition.  We passed a lookout through to the big mountains and there was a sign board depicting and naming them including the famous Mt Blanc. Unfortunately for us they were all obscured in what appears to a heat haze.It is very hot up here with temperatures into the low 30’s. A little later we did see some outlines through the haze and they are big mountains.   We watched the weather on TV last night and there is another heatwave imminent. Some areas, in fact most areas will experience high 3...
Read more

Dinan to Mont St Michel

Image
 Another grey day and threatening rain. We only have a short distance to go and we only had a bit of drizzle until we got near our destination and then it hosed down.  We were too early to check into our hotel but we could park in the hotel carpark and leave gear in the lobby.  We have arrived at probably the 2nd most photographed place in France behind the Eiffel Tower.  Mont Saint Michel is an icon. Of course there are tourists everywhere but for good reason, this place is epic.  We jumped on the free shuttle bus which traverses a causeway out to the island. The weather had fined up and the tide was out so we could wander around the island to get different perspectives and to truly appreciate the scale of this place.   We then entered the compoumd and meandered up and up and joined a queue to get tickets into the abbey proper. We opted to get the audio guide as well which was well worthwhile.  The design and engineering of the abbey is off the s...
Read more

Kassel to Celle

Image
 A lovely day today. The weather is pleasant and our journey has also been very pleasant without being spectacular. Much like yesterday really, many lovely farming villages and perfect back country roads meandering through rolling farmlands and woodland forests. For several km the road was lined with lovely oak trees, very nice until I considered the possibility of having to take evasive action at some point……I stopped thinking about it then.  Our destination is the town of Celle which we didn’t know too much about but it is a gem. After checking into our hotel we walked through a lovely park into the old town.   We visited the palace dated back to the 12 th century. It is now a really beautiful museum.  There are many pieces of period furniture in place and some of the cabinets amd bureaus have staggeringly beautiful inlaid wood patterns. The last permanent resident of this palace was Caroline Matilda the sister of King George III.  She married the Danish king ...
Read more