Saturday 28 May 2011

France 2010, Day Six, Rochefort

Day Six 9th June

One part of the trip I haven't motioned, is that I want to visit the Rochefort Transporter Bridge, we have one on Teesside and I want to visit all of the remaining Transporters in the world. The second part of this wish is not likely to come true, I may manage all the Transporters in Europe one day but as for South America, maybe if I win the lottery. We were only going to stop for one night but Mick had a tourist brochure from Rochefort, it looked interesting, maybe worth a two night stop.

It was quite a complicated drive to Rochefort avoiding tolls, we left the campsite back onto the D213 south, the road name changed to the D13. At the D95 we turned right and again the road name changed to the D32, at the outskirts of Challans we joined the D948 to La Roche-sur-Yon. Then round the ring road (D160, D948, A87) to the D746, just north of Lucon. there we skirt the town onto the D137. We follow the D137 to the D10A which changes name to the D9 then back to the D10 (don't ask me), to La Rochelle. Here we go round La Rochelle on the N237/ D137 then onto the D733 at Rochefort, then Boulevard Édouard Pouzet following the signs to the municipal campsite.

Camping Municipal, Le Rayonnement, Rochefort
Rochefort
Camping Municipal, Le Rayonnement, Rochefort
3 avenue de la Fosse-aux-Mâts, 17300 Rochefort

We had filled in a contact form for this site but had had no reply but assumed that there would be plenty of room this time of year. We were in fact, lucky to get a pitch, as it was very full, it looked like many were here for the season and we were the only none French on the site.

No chance with the satellite dishes, too many trees, Mick also tried to get French TV with his aerial but with no luck.

As we set off to find the walk along the river Charente, with the town one way and the Transporter bridge the other way, the weather started to change. It became overcast and and a lot cooler than it had been, good job we took waterproofs with us, as soon as we got to the river and sited the Transporter, is started to rain. The rain got very heavy and we had to shelter under some trees until it stopped.



We did get very wet, but headed along the river back into town anyway. It wasn't long before the sun was back out and we soon dried off. We passed the Napoleonic dry-docks and ended up at the Musée National de la Marine, it was late in the day and we didn't want to pay to get in. So we headed into town and ended up by the marina for a beer in the sun.


After a beer we set off back into the centre but couldn't find it (couldn't find a bit with shops and bars that is, we must have just missed it), we did have another beer in a bar on our trek back though. On the way back we did get a fantastic view of the bridge down the road.

Avenue Jacques Demy

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