TLDR: An easy trip, but some surprises awaited in La Rochelle.
So, two-and-a-half long travel days. The first was an 11 hour overnight flight to Paris, which was bit delayed, but otherwise perfect. We’d sprung for business class seats, which meant that the food and service were excellent, and that it was possible to sleep acceptably well in the lie-down seats. We got to Paris at about 4 in the afternoon, got through border control more quickly than I expected, and found our bags just arriving at the exact time we arrived at the baggage carrousel. After a long walk to the CDG-Val train, we made our way to the CDG Novotel, which has become a home away from home for us. It’s moderately upscale (although reasonably priced), and if its rooms are a bit utilitarian, they’re nevertheless are clean, comfortable, well-equipped, and very quiet. I slept well (though Suzie didn’t), and we had a leisurely morning drinking coffee and eating pastries (me).
We left at ten, picked up some food for lunch, and found our way to the big inter-city train station at the airport. The crowds there were huge, and getting to the right boarding spot on the track was a chore (due to construction, one of the two entrances to the tracks was closed). We had to carry our baggage down a flight of stairs (the escalators were too clogged), then backtrack to get to our loading spot. We had first class seats on the first train (Paris to Tours on the CGV), which was great, but the second class seats on the second train (Tours to La Rochelle) were cramped and uncomfortable. Still, it’s always cool to be going 185 mph on a train.
Our friends Alain and Isabel were waiting at the station and took us (and our baggage) to our apartment. We (and be “we” I mean “Suzie”) had a bunch of work done on the apartment over the last year, which improved the look and functioning of the place. It’s nice to end up in a place that’s completely familiar after travelling so long and so far. That’s the way we feel here … we’re not visiting, we’re at our home-away-from-home. That evening, we went out to a Italian place just down the street; here a view from our table.
The greeting our apartment gave us wasn’t all positive; after turning on the refrigerator and waiting for it to get cold … well, it never did. It got mildly cool, and all signs are that it is dying.
We wondered how old our “Radiola Turbofroid” refrigerator was. A search came up with two old advertisement for it, from 1987 and 1988 respectively. Radiola is a French electronics brand that began in the 1920s.
So our refrigerator was quite the thing at the time. Frost free! But it’s now almost 40 years old. No wonder it’s giving up the ghost. I’d say the original purchaser got their money’s worth.
The lack of a working refrigerator made us change our shopping plans. We only bought a limited amount of perishable food, which we stored in the freezer (still partially working) along with two bags of ice. That worked OK, but we couldn’t go without a working refrigerator.
The next day was errand day.
First, a trip to the E. Leclerc auto store in Lagord (a 15 minute Uber ride) to pick up our rental car. The same two women were at the desk as the last two times (“The same team!” I said, to which the older woman replied, “You don’t break up a winner”). Since they recognized us, the transaction was easier than it otherwise would have been, given that they’d put in place a new system. We eventually got our car (a Peugeot 2008 that Suzie thinks is too big), had lunch at the small, homey, inexpensive Nomade Grille at the E. Leclerc grocery store (a salad for 8.50 euro, a sandwich for 4.50 euro, two espressos for 1.20 euro each).
Then, shopping in the huge grocery store, which also has a big selection of stuff other than food. As always, we were amazed by the low prices for food. Here’s one example:
That’s a dozen eggs for $3.15. Try finding that in the States, even in a Grocery Outlet. $2.75 for a big box of Corn Flakes, inexpensive wine, meat, milk, yogurt, cheese … everything. Cheap even with the dollar being down a bit. Although we bought a ton of stuff (mostly non-perishable food and non-food stuff), the total was just a little above 200 euros.
The drive back to our apartment was stressful. It’s always hard the first time you drive a new car, and the center of La Rochelle is a maze of narrow, mostly one-way streets. Our usual route (green below) is blocked until 4 pm on Wednesdays and Friday (at the red) because of the street markets. Those days we have to take another route (purple) that requires opening a pair of bollards blocking the street for cars (at the orange). As residents of the center area, the city gives us a card allowing us to open the bollards. We’d forgotten to take that with us, but Suzie’s dad Paul was able to meet us at the bollards with the card.
Of course, the card didn’t work. The bollards stayed up. We were blocked. So I had to back out onto the very busy Rue Villeneuve, then find another place to park the car. While searching, we noticed that blockage that’s normally in place until 4 pm (the red) wasn’t there, even though it was just 2:30. So we were able to get to the parking for our apartment. Hooray.
But wait, there’s more. In front of our parking spot is a big Pomegranate tree. It’s now at the height of its fruit-producing stage, and has bulged out enough to make it impossible to pull all the way into our spot. This is problematic for reasons I can’t go into, so Suzie had to call the HOA’s agent to find us another parking space.
We still had two things to do: replace our dying fridge, and get a new bollard-opening card. (I should remind readers that this is all happening on our first full day in La Rochelle, long days of travel.) For the fridge, we went to the Proxi Confort store, a 3-minute walk away, where we’d bought replacements for the apartment’s aging and failing oven and stovetop. We love shopping there because it’s a small, one-man operation, and the one man is extremely knowledgeable about home appliances, allowing us to narrow down our choices quickly. We may have been able to get a new fridge more cheaply at one of the big box stores on the outskirts of town, but we like supporting small businesses within walking distance.
The next task was getting a working card to lower the bollards on Rue Amelot on market days. Suzie remembered where she’d gotten the card originally (at the offices of the Police Muncipale located just down the block from us. The police shared the offices with the Service des Objects Trouvés (the City lost-and-found), and as a tourist destination, a lot of lost items get turned in.
We learned that the bollard card is only good for a year, and ours had expired the week before. But the officer was able to extend it for another year, so bollards will no longer be an obstacle.
That evening our friends Isabelle and Alain came by, and we went down to the old port for drinks. The sun was setting by the time we left, the end of long but productive first day in La Rochelle.
I conclude with a picture of our street, Rue Thiers, taken from our bedroom window. Worth the trip.
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