La Rochelle

Last day of the holidays.  We had a choice, stay in Poitiers and go kayaking or use the final day of our Interrail pass and go to La Rochelle for the day.  We gave Tom the choice and he went for La Rochelle.  So, off to the train station we went and hopped on the train to La Rochelle.  I have been before, when I was 18 I went on a train holiday with some friends from school and we ended up in La Rochelle.  I expected to recognise it when we arrived, I didn't!  Considering most of the buildings have been there for 100s of years, I'm figuring it just didn't stick in my memory.  I knew where the youth hostel was and it was still there, but apart from that I had no recall at all!

Oh well, meant it was a whole new town to explore.  We stared out down by the harbour and were doing our usual thing of looking in shops, taking photos etc when I got a call from Hiromi!  So, Hiromi had posted yesterday that she was on the Île de Ré.  We were surprised, Matt got in touch with her via FB to say we were in La Rochelle, no reply, so this morning I had sent her a message on Insta saying we were going to to be in La Rochelle.  It was quite a site, seeing Matt in his South Africa cricket top, speaking Japanese on a busy street in France - didn't quite all add up!

Anyway the upshot from the phone call was that Hiromi was going to get the bus over to La Rochelle so we could meet up.  We couldn't believe it! We spent the next hour looking around the town, the plan was to go for a boat ride, but we didn't have time for that now.  We had an ice cream, did some shopping, looked around the towers of the harbour - one named 'Nicolas' which was obviously the biggest and best, and then went in search of the bus station ready for their arrival.

Hiromi said all 4 of them were coming over, she said they were staying with a friend on the Île de Ré so we were expecting Hiromi, Sachiko & John (who live in Bath) and their French friend to arrive, but no French friend, but Kyoko, her other daughter - so the whole gang.  We found their bus stop and saw them immediately.  Then it was non stop chatter.  Hiromi is 80 something now and it was hot and she didn't look too good on her feet, so we walked to the ice cream shop they had been recommended and tucked in (was actually our second ice cream of the day - but shush, don't tell anyone!) 

We chatted some more, then went for a tiny circuit of La Rochelle, but once again we felt like we were dragging Hiromi around, so we found a bar and had a panaché and continued to chat.  It was lovely.  I sat and chatted with Kyoko and Sachiko, whilst Tom and Matt chatted to Hiromi.  We took photos, but before we knew it, it was time to leave - so we said our goodbyes and headed back to the train station.  We certainly weren't expecting that for our day!

We got back to Poitiers starving - 2 ice creams, really not enough for lunch, so stopped off in the square for tea, then we returned to the hotel, packed our bags ready for our return trip - train to Lille leaves at 7.19 in the morning.