Yesterday (Saturday) we decided to venture a bit further afield, so grabbed the camera, walked to the train station, and bought an aller-retour ticket to Rochefort for the day.

The ticket allowed us to get on the next train stopping there and choose any train we wanted coming back, which was perfect, since we didn’t know how long we’d want to stay.

Rochefort turned out to be quiet and pretty, and practically deserted.

We weren’t really in a museum mood, so had lunch in Place Colbert, then walked over the find the replica of the ship Hermione, one of the main attractions of Rochefort.

The original Hermione was used by the Marquis de Lafayette in 1780 to head over to America to help the Americans with the revolution. The replica took twenty years to build, using only the methods in use at the time of the original, but someone is apparently confident she’s seaworthy. They’re scheduled to sail to the Americas in 2015. Um, okay. You go ahead without me.

Loved the peaceful parks, and the palm-tree-lined, clean, quiet streets, but after a bit more wandering we decided to catch the 20-minute train back to La Rochelle and see what was happening around Cours des Dames, our favorite people-watching spot.

As it turned out, plenty was happening, some of it neither quiet nor pretty:

There were four or five others just like this guy, including a couple of kids, strolling around Cours des Dames, posing for photos and passing out flyers for some event to which apparently I was not invited, since they did not give me a flyer. I think I’ll get over it.

Too big a crowd to get photos when some dancers had the music playing and were going all-out, but when we walked by later during a break and I pulled out my camera, a couple of the guys did a few tricks for me:

Came across Renoir, I mean this guy, on the way home:

And a bit further on, this cheerful couple:

So no, La Rochelle is definitely not as quiet, and maybe the people aren’t always exactly, well, normal. But it sure felt great to step off the train and stroll along the familiar streets toward the bustling centre ville. It felt, actually, kind of like home.

 

This past weekend was the Cavalcade de La Rochelle, which involved carnival rides and games and an illuminated parade Saturday night.

It seemed like it might offer some photo ops and give me something new to tell you about, so we walked back to the vieux port just before dark. It was absolutely mobbed. The streets from Place de Verdun, where the parade was to start,  all the way to Quai Duperré were already lined with people, so the easiest place to walk was right down the center of the street. There were enough of us heading in the same direction that it almost felt like we were our own pre-parade. I did manage to resist the urge to prom-queen wave. Here’s the same street a bit later with the real parade:

Since it seemed we were already too late to get a front spot for the parade, we managed instead to snag a table at a cafe, where we had a drink and then, yes, of course, un café. When you order un café here, you’re actually getting an espresso. If you want more water in it, so it’s more like American coffee, you have to order un café allongé, which David likes. But I don’t like the taste of coffee enough to prolong the experience. I prefer the quick jolt of an espresso that has you wanting to yodel like Tarzan.

 It was another great opportunity for people watching. Everyone seemed content to stand for nearly an hour, chatting with friends, watching children, maybe buying a bag of confetti. Even after the parade actually showed up–“got going” would be a misleading choice of words–the legendary Rochelais patience was strongly in evidence. I’ve never seen a slower parade, with five-to-ten-minute stops for who knows what. Note the irony in the photo below: the woman in the speedboat, the fact that they happened to stop in front of a pawnshop offering “Speed Cash,” and the guy dressed as a sailor leaning on the float with his ankles crossed. He knows they’re not going anywhere soon.

It was excellent for photography, though, because it was bright and colorful and there was absolutely no danger of anything going by too fast.

Sometimes the spectators would actually just walk out into the middle of the street and take a few pictures.

Although David and I have now been here for two months, we have not managed to acquire this low-key attitude quite to this degree, so we decided to walk against the flow of the parade to speed the process a bit. Guess we’ll always be American.

We had the night streets nearly to ourselves on the way home.

Postscript: There was another parade Sunday afternoon (presumably sans lights) but we decided to head home after lunch in town and didn’t catch that one. Saw this on the way home. Word to the wise: don’t park on the parade route. Here’s what happens to your car if you do:

No, nothing to do with American football, and barely even night. You have to be quite the night-owl to photograph La Rochelle after dark, because the sun doesn’t set until nearly 10 o’clock and it isn’t all that dark even at 10:30. But determined to get some night shots, last night I found a spot to sit while waiting–in vain, as it turned out–for all three towers to light up.

There was plenty of other pretty light. Love the reflection on the water of the vieux port:

And no shortage of people:

Since we were getting cold in the chilly breeze off the water and still had a half hour walk back home, we gave up around 10:30:

Somebody must have taken the night off. Oh well. We’ll be back. This weekend is the Cavalcade de La Rochelle and tonight there’s a night parade we’re going to try to check out. Wish us insomnia: it goes from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. Espresso, anyone? Make mine a double.

I’ve reached the age where birthdays are more “Gha-a-a-a-a-a” than “Yea-a-a-a-a-a-a,” but we had a pleasant Saturday all the same. We decided to treat ourselves to a nice lunch here:

We had been here last year with Pascale and Jacky and loved it, but then we were here for dinner, we had dressed up, and we had a reservation. For my birthday lunch, we just showed up and were wearing nice-ish normal clothes, but woohoo, we got in anyway. So did this chien. Hey, we ARE in France.

David was smart enough to remember that the menu in French restaurants, which is always some combination of courses, is usually too much food, so we ordered only an aperitif, a main course and a bottle of wine. Here’s what came with the aperitif:

If you know David at all, you can imagine his lack of delight at discovering the front right one was pureed baby peas with lemon. (Quite tasty for anyone but David.) Then we had the best steak we’ve ever had in France. (We haven’t quite figured out what to order here.) Here’s the waiter doing something fabulous with the sauce:

Then, okay, we did manage to find room for a Café Gourmand:

After lunch, a bit more wandering around town, our usual people watching, then eventually home for a relaxing evening. It was a quiet, good day, no balloons, no singing, no gazillion candles on a cake causing a fire hazard, just a few here:

This marker of another year passing reminds me once again of all I have to be grateful for: you, dear friends, this journey certainly, and of course, my companion in adventure who will even eat the occasional pureed pea to help celebrate a milestone. We met 36 years ago today. Now that’s an anniversary worth celebrating. Cheers!