La Rochelle!

Office de Tourisme

Two days after I finished my last final and the day before my birthday, I headed off to La Rochelle! The harbor city is a little over 2 hours from Bordeaux, and I got there at 10:45 in the morning and left at 9:20 that night. It was a really full day, and I felt like I could have stayed for weeks! La Rochelle is a really beautiful city, and it was a little extra interesting for me because my mom's family is from New Rochelle in New York, which was named after La Rochelle.

Let me say this, La Rochelle does tourism right. Walking from the train station to the Office de Tourisme was super easy, and even taking a detour to a post office was a breeze just following the signs. I had written down some instructions, but I didn't even need to take out my paper. Plus the streets were really clean, and it was a beautiful day outside. The Office de Tourisme itself is how all Offices de Tourisme should be. It was barely 10 minutes walking from the train station, and right downtown and next to the famous La Rochelle aquarium. It was air-conditioned and clean, and the staff were friendly and didn't switch  to English on me.¹ (Yes!!) And the bathroom. OH. EM. GEE. It was beautiful. It was clean and free. There was soap. There were seats. It was air-conditioned. Okay, I know after 9 months of traveling Europe, my standards for public restrooms were drastically lowered, but trust me, this was a gem. And in the lobby, there were lots of couches and not-useless pamphlets. It was great. I think I went back to use the bathroom like three times.

Anyways, on to the actual sight-seeing stuff. I mostly stayed in the Vieux Port (Old Harbor) area, which is breathtaking. The water is so blue and clear, and there's tons and tons of boats. And there are two old stone towers at the entrance to the harbor, and then a third tower a little ways down the shore. They look like the towers of a castle! So pretty! I walked out to this sort of outcropping which had a great view of them, just to take it all in.

Tour de la Chaîne and Tour Saint-Nicolas

Then I headed over to the tour Saint-Nicolas (the one on the right) to go inside. It turned out the towers were free for students!! And they gave me a booklet explaining each room too.² It was pretty interesting to learn how the old guard tower functioned, and the views from the top were amazing!! You can see the whole harbor and out across the town and the other two towers. Photos!

After that, I tore myself away from the sparkling blue water to check out the Hôtel de Ville (city hall) and the Cathédrale Saint-Louis. Just walking down the streets was also really beautiful. All the buildings are made of white stone, and everything looks really clean and perfectly maintained. The Hôtel de Ville was really pretty, even though parts of it were being repaired. The Cathédrale Saint-Louis was also in the middle of being restored, but breathtaking nonetheless! The lighting was so perfect, I got some awesome pictures of the stained glass. The rest of the cathedral and all of the altars and statues were also beautiful.

Hôtel de Ville

Cathédrale Saint-Louis

Next, I headed back to the harbor, and I went up the tour de la Chaîne (the round tower). Inside, they had some interesting exhibits on French settlers in North America. I looked for some mention of New Rochelle, but it was all on French Canadian settlements. Again, there were a ton of awesome views, including of the first tower I went up.³

I decided to check out Port des Minimes next. The ferry boats over there only left every hour, so I had to hustle over. Wikipedia tells me Port des Minimes is the largest pleasure boat marina in all of France, and I believe it! There are literally thousands of boats there; it was crazy! It was really pretty (how many times can I say that in one post?), but I was mostly taken away by the overwhelming number of boats. I decided to walk back along the shore to the harbor with the towers, and I think it took me a good half hour just to get past the marina.

Please ignore the panorama stitching error...

By the time I got back, it was already like 7:30, so I didn't have too much time left. As I walked around, deciding what to do next, I saw all these people with fabulous looking ice cream cones, and I knew I had to investigate. I did, and I discovered Ernest le Glacier! So délicieux. Since I'd been walking around in the sun all day, and it was my birthday the next day, I decided to just get a large ice cream cone as my dinner/dessert.⁴ May I just say, EXCELLENT DECISION, KATIE. This ice cream was delicious! Let's see, I think I got Café Cognac (turning 21 the next day, after all), Cara'sel (salted caramel), and Tiramisu. I ate it sitting on the edge of the harbor... the water, the sunset, the three scoops of delicious ice cream... it was all so beautiful, I'm tearing up a little right now.

My new friend :]

Before I had to head back to the train station, I made one last stop at a little beach by the tour de la Lanterne (the spiky tower). I found this cool little rock/crab creature, put my feet in the sand, and enjoyed the end of my day in La Rochelle. In case you haven't guessed so far, I definitely recommend going to La Rochelle if you're ever in southwest France!

À bientôt!⁵

1. The lady I talked to actually offered me a map in German! Haha
2. And this person offered me a guide in Spanish! :O Haha I can see German, but I'm pretty sure I don't look/sound Spanish at all.
3. Also, this is random, but there was this dark, cool video room up at the roof level, and I distinctly remember stopping to reapply sunscreen here. Like I can smell the sunscreen. Crazy.
4. I mean...
5. Sheesh, is it almost August already? I need to pick up the pace!

La Rochelle - Bientôt!

Going through my pictures from La Rochelle. One of the prettiest places I've ever been!

À bientôt!

Les Macarons!!!

Oh mon dieu, I miss macarons. These were amazing:

Amande/Almond

Framboise/Raspberry 

Caramel/OMG SO SO SO SO SO SO GOOD

And they weren't even that expensive! The little bag of three was less than 2€, which for macarons is pretty good. And they were from a MOF too!!

À bientôt!

1. Check out the website of the shop where I got them, if you want to get depressed about not being in France right now.

La Crème Chantilly!

Looking through my photos, I came across this picture of one of the many drinks that fueled my minor whipped cream addiction:

Makes me miss The French Coffee Shop! But at least I have the real deal now - by which I mean Starbucks. =D

I am reminded of my personal hero, Leslie Knope of Parks and Recreation¹:

À bientôt!

1. You can watch every season so far of Parks and Recreation on Netflix. And you really should. Start with season 2 though. Trust me on this.
2. Who knew I could put gifs in these posts??!

Fête de Fin d'Année!

To celebrate the end of the year, EAP had one last outing for us. We went to tour the Abbaye de la Sauve-Majeur and then to the Château Mediéval de Langoiran for lunch and some medieval entertainment. Unfortunately, not that many people came - only like 15 out of 50 students made it. It was the last Saturday of spring break, so a lot of people were off traveling - or just ready to be done already with everything school-related, I think. Plus it was another gray, cold, rainy day, so some people just didn't want to get up at 10am.¹ But I had a good time! :]

Our first stop was the Abbaye de la Sauve-Majeur, which was consecrated way back in the 13th century. It's mostly just some of the walls that are left now, but the tour guide explained to us how you can still see the original cross-shape of the church and where the altars were. He also explained some of the carvings that you can still see. Since most people were illiterate back then, the church made carvings in pillars to represent Bible stories and the morals you were supposed to learn from them. There was one with Adam and Eve and one with Samson and a lion, and a few others that I don't remember. It was pretty interesting, and the abbey was pretty even though it was raining and gloomy.

Guy getting eaten by lions :O

Samson fighting that lion!

Gloomy gloomy

Next, we headed to the Château Mediéval de Langoiran. We didn't really tour it, we just walked through the pouring rain to the event room where we were eating lunch (which was not actually part of the château, just off to the side). We seriously ate lunch all afternoon, like from 12:30 - 5:30. There were little crackers to start, then I gnawed on some delicious bread for a while, then there was the main course of beans and lamb and more bread. And eventually, apple tart with pudding/cream for dessert. And of course lots of wine! This was all interspersed with performances by a troupe of medieval entertainers who played music and sang songs, told stories, and performed skits and magic tricks. I admit, when they told us the lunch was going to be medieval themed, I thought it would be a little dorky, but it was actually a lot of fun. Even when they made us all do medieval dances at the end... (Not sure all that twirling after eating for five hours was a good idea, though!)

Anyways, it was a fun day! And it was nice to have one last event with the other California students and the program directors. 

For the next two weeks, I had to crack down and study for finals! I did visit some other places though, which I will write about soooon. :]

I love the blue tinges of the stone :]

À bientôt!

1. We're from California! Doing things in the rain is hard.

Périgueux!

So believe it or not, I actually didn't do any traveling for like a month and a half after Christophe came to visit me. Turns out I actually do study... Imagine that. Anyways, because of the crazy way the French school system works, three out of my five classes ended a week before my spring break from my other two classes. It's complicated, but I ended up with one week of spring break. (Some people had two, and some people finished completely in the middle of April - whaaat. It all depends where you took your classes.) 

Anyways, this week was during the month where it rained nonstop. Like seriously, it was pouring rain every single day - if not all day, then at least for a few hours. There was a lot of hail too. I stayed inside for most of it, but I figured I should leave the house at some point during my spring break, so I intensively studied the weather forecasts and determined I would take a trip to nearby Périgueux on Wednesday.

Périgueux is only a little over an hour from Bordeaux by train. It's a smallish town, mostly known for foie gras (I'll take a pass on that one) and the Cathédrale Saint-Front. I was only there from noon to around 7pm, but I had plenty of time to go on the two suggested walking tours on the map I got from the Office de Tourisme. And despite all my careful meteorological research, the weather still ranged from drizzly to raining the whole day, which was kind of a drag.

The sandwich I had for lunch.
There was string around it.

I had hastily jotted down directions to the Office de Tourisme the night before, but not really anything else. Irresponsible lack of planning spontaneity FTW! Luckily, the Office de Tourisme was pretty much a straight shot from the train station. They made me pay 0.50€ for their map though, which was annoying. Bonjour, I am stimulating your almost completely tourist-based economy here!! But the map had two clearly marked suggested walking tours, so it at least gave me a good path to follow.

Quite frankly, Périgueux in the rain was pretty dreary. It was still a pretty town to walk around in, just nothing too too notable. (Except the cathedral, which was pretty awesome!) Here are some pretty pictures:

The Cathédrale Saint-Front was modeled after the Basilica di San Marco, which I saw in Venice. It's pretty unique looking because of the roof, which is made up of domes and a lot of small towers. You can see the towers and domes poking up from behind buildings from most parts in town. And the domes look really cool from the inside looking up too! There's also a lot of cool stained glass (of course) and some neat chandeliers. And like almost everywhere else in Périgueux, there were only a few people there, which was nice. 

After touring downtown and the cathedral, and getting some lunch, I spent the second part of my time in Périgueux touring old Roman sites. In desperation for a clean bathroom (the public ones were not happening¹), I also broke down and paid for² a ticket to the Musée Vesuna, an archaeological museum, which was actually pretty interesting.  They have a whole floor that's set up to mimic an archaeological dig, with platforms to walk around on, which is pretty cool. And I was able to use their bathrooms twice, so totally worth admission. I guess.

Here's some of the other Roman sites I saw:

And some other stuff:

A nice park!

Creepy pencil! Reminded me of this.

And before I knew it, I was headed back to Bordeaux! If you're only spending a couple weeks or less in southwest France, I wouldn't really recommend stopping by Périgueux unless you're super into old Roman sites or domed cathedrals. But since I was there for 9 months, it was definitely a nice day trip. :]

Check out this awesome pig! Reminded me of Bacon Bit! :D

À bientôt!

1. Come on Périgueux, it's 2012!!!
2. What?? Aren't museums supposed to be free for students?!!