La Rochelle

 We checked out of our hotel at the civilized hour of 10:45 am and drove to La Rochelle, a harbor town with beautiful buildings, several towers and loads of history. We parked near the elegant train station and Julie, Sue and Nick visited the world-class aquarium while Mary hit the market. 

The aquarium was fabulous with over 75 state of the art exhibits and classical music interspersed with sea sounds in the background. There were numerous hippocampus (sea horse) tanks, loads of vibrant coral and anemones and every fish imaginable. Photos didn’t do it justice but we snapped away anyway. We think Niko would have loved all the sharks and stingrays. Julie was raving about the jellyfish. They had signs in French and English so, for the most part, it was easy to understand. There was a flag across some of the names with “Menace” on it. Sue figured it meant “endangered” but it was a struggle to confirm it with the French information desk. The very end featured a walk across a plank bridge into a steamy jungle scene with a few tanks with fish and turtles from the Florida area. 

We walked into the hot town center, met Mary and had lunch at an atmospheric restaurant on the harbor. Julie had a huge serving of mussels; Sue had a goat cheese salad; Mary had a cheese plate; and Nick had a shrimp and avocado appetizer. Definitely delicious and the settting was lovely. We then took a long walk back to the market where Maria had told us they had an arched overhang so they could move the linen and other fabric between shops without fear of it getting wet. The main market was closed so we walked back to the town center with its giant Ferris wheel. We didn’t have time to ride. We made it back to the bus in a wilted state thinking this is the hottest 83 degrees ever. We rode 2 hours to our next hotel in Nantes.