Today, we left Southern France and headed up the coast.  We had thought that we would be stopping at Bordeaux, but when we looked closer at where our hotel reservation was actually in La Rochelle.  When we planned, we thought it would be on the outskirts of Bordeaux, but actually it was about two hours north.  To our pleasant surprise, La Rochelle was a really nice little city.

We arrived in the afternoon and found our hotel.  We took off and walked around the city.  It is a small city on the coast, with some really beautiful architecture.  We went out for dinner and tried our first French pizza.  We’d been seeing pizza shop after pizza shop ever since we landed in France.  It was actually very good and cheesy, but with a variety of French cheeses… yummy.

During our walkabout, there were a few odd things of note.  First was that homeless folks like to sleep in the middle of the pathway.  I was a little surprised, but we managed to not step on him or his dog.  The other funny sight was three teenagers laying out in the sun…. on top of the public toilets.  I don’t want to know how it smelled there, but people did leave the alone.  We also found by accident the city’s botanical garden.  While still early in the season, they had some beautiful flowers.

La Rochelle was a stopping point for us, so we focused on just walking around being the tourist we were, and then getting some sleep.  Perhaps next time we’ll stay a bit longer.  It really is a nice little tourist town.