After leaving Morbihan Jens decided that we would make a new try at visiting a nice island after failing to stay at Belle Ile. Ile the Yeu was the perfect stop halfway to La Rochelle. We had heard from friends who had been sailing there before that there was some nice walking trails across the island. The first day after we arrived the sun was shining and we chose a trail that took us to the Chateau on the other side. Passing villages, farms and sheep, we arrived at the other side to find a carpenter working on making the old fort more safe. He allowed us to take a sneak peak inside for some minutes even though it was closed. When we said that we sailed from Sweden he was excited and told us that he went to Sweden every year for a hard rock festival (Sweden Rock).
It was one of those days when you could just enjoy the nature and when sheltered from the wind we didn´t need to keep much clothes on. We decided that the spring had finally arrived to stay and we threw away the clothes to celebrate ?
All over the island the houses looked completely the same - white houses with orange roof tiles and colourful doors and shields for the windows.
We continued to La Rochelle, the biggest port on the Atlantic coast with room for over 5000 boats. We were amazed to see that almost all of them were sailboats. There was a lot of companies around the harbour making and repairing boats, sails or chandleries.
I took a stroll down to the old town which was really pretty and a lot of people were enjoying the sun outside the restaurants. It reminded me a lot of Paris and some Italian cities I´ve visited before in terms of the architecture and all the nice shops and restaurants in the streets. Many archways framed the little shops and if it wasn’t for the adventure awaiting I would have loved to stay for a few more days.
But now we were getting ready to cross the Bay of Biscay! More about that next time…
Here´s a short video with some highlights cruising the French coast. Enjoy!
P.S. Don´t forget to ask us some questions or suggest topics on what you want to read more about!
- Petra
