6 & 7 of/10/2015

All begun fairly early yesterday morning, after having finished cleaning the house and having breakfast and showers. Suitcases and backpacks ready. Madame with her car, off we set off to La Passe( a little place about half way east on the island), which is where the bus was indeed waiting. Monsieur Chauffeur, sweeping, mopping, spray and wiping mirrors etc, Madame had a few words(in the nicest possible French way) to say to the unfortunate man about her experiences with the phone service the bus company gave the previous day. She was very sweet and gave us hugs and waved us off!

No donkeys this time and a few more interesting weather vanes near La Flotte.

Our train was waiting, though we had to wait some time before boarding it and heading to Poitiers. The change over was on the same platform so all good there, until we were about to settle in our seats I realised I didn't have my vital little bag! Straight off to find the conductor for him to contact the other train. Which all happened fairly quickly. And he was to get back to us if it was found. Which a few minutes later he did and it was ,with all the vital bits inside. such as credit card, passport, camera, house keys and rosary. The latter I believe being the important link I was praying to for its safe recovery.

Guy in the meanwhile of my running around had contacted Jo and let her know, she was very sweet with her reply and was also praying for me. xox

The conductor advised us to get off at the next stop and wait for 15 minutes for the next train to Montparnasse, which is where our original train was going. We followed his advice and boarded the train and the conductors there were nice and checked us in with our other tickets. Just a very fast train and we arrived safely and found the Information and the man who knew about the bag, brought it out and it was all there except the money. Which in the overall scheme of things was not a big loss.

To recover from all the emotion we crossed from the station to have some hot chocolates and desserts at Le Petit Journal. Though we did see a few musicians enter, we left too early to hear their music. They are holding the quarter's jazz festival until end of October. 

 For a first we took a direct bus service to the Airport (I know at peak hour by this time) and an extra half an hour to our journey as a result. The bus was very squashy and hot. Anyway the hold up was on the free way north and we did enjoy the earlier streeets and saw the Bastille monument and various other buildings of note. We even went past the street where we first stayed in Paris together in 2012. The rain kicked in a bit here and there, we finally arrived safely at the airport and we freshened up and checked our bags in.

We were entertained by a woman pianist (there was a piano there), which was nice.

Sunrise over Doha as we approached

Flight was uneventful and now we are in the family quiet room for Guy to sleep, I managed ok on the flight. After lunch we will head to the lounge for a shower and relax there, as we are flying out late tonight. Which is rather tiring, but we'll make most of it here, the Airport is modern now, and has many facilities. Lots of walks to keep our circulation going.

Now we have checked out the Braun hair dryer so time to go to the Oryx First class lounge which is a pay service if you are not a Business or First Class passenger. very good value for 6 hours and the manager gave us a it extra because of the long stop over we are having here. The food is great and the service unbelievable. Showers are very relieving on long stopovers too.

Feeling refreshed and needing to do some more retail therapy we loaded up

We have great seats - just 2 in the row - at the back of first section over the wings. Bon voyage.

　

5th October 2015.

Last day for us here in France and on Ile de Re.  Such a spectacular spot.  Took the cycles out one more time around the Lighthouse and the village.  Ate one last crepe at Chez Marie.  Walked around the point and breathed in the warm ocean air and listened to the various birds arguing on the seaweed.

One example of the many weather vanes that people have on their homes.  this one was on the nearby mill.

Circulation alternee, which means men at work and wait for your turn!

One of the many shop walls in the Lighthouse village.

Of course there had the be the last crepe for the trip, so this was farewell to Chez Marie. Monsieur waiting for his!

very low tide showing the man made efforts to reverse the massive Atlantic forces that batter the coast.  Also visible is the hand made walls to enclose the sea for fishing purposes.  These are official fishing concessions which still exist but they are very fragile and can withstand any sea but not human destruction.

 

The shore line is such a haven for all sorts of baby birds including this one as old as its parents.

 

 

Very calm sea compared to this morning

 

A scarecrow in a vegie patch

Looking toward the main part of the village of St Clement des Baleines from the east coast with the rain about to hit us.

 

Our last look at the fields that give the island such a spacious environment.  They grow almost all their own food here. 

 

And our last selfie from a little laneway pole in between the villages of St Clement des Baleines and our hamlet of Le Gillieux ( all part of the same commune).

 

 

 

This has been a great 10 days here enjoying the open air, open sea, open fields, cycling, walking, enjoying life saving figs by the hand full, nice people, the history and the visits to special places that make L'Il de Re a must return holiday one day.  Our host Mrs Durrbach was such a lovely helpful lady.  The next 3 days travelling and laying over on a long stop at Doha on Wednesday.

 

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4th October 2015 - With the meteo forecast proving correct with grey skies and afternoon rain we jettisoned the shorts and donned jeans and heavy jackets for the bus trip to the other end of the island. 
Objectif 1- visit la Flotte, the oldest port on the island
Objectif 2 - try to find those shaggy donkeys
Objectif 3 - make it home around 6:45


Well first photo upon alighting from the bus in la Flotte was this one - Euro35 fine for vulgar language.  Monsieur Le Marie must be strict at home too lol

A small but attractive ancient harbour and lovely tree lined streets

And a delightful surprise to find an undercover market with amazing array of super fresh fruit and vegetables, meats, cheeses, wines, seafood to die for.

All locally grown vegies but fruit from everywhere of course

Some of the most attractive village streets you could find

Not entrirely visible but lots of retail shops for a village of 2,500 people.

We left La Flotte at midday and followed the coastal bike path - 4 km of peaceful tranquillity passing hundreds of multi million euro properties on the coast with the every darkening sky to the north east and thankfully we had a map of the town to navigate our way to facilities and the port.

The village of St Martin is another one of those impenetrable fortresses that held out against the Duke of Buckingham in the 17thCentury and he left defeated.  The island reverted to the French King again.

The massive defence maze meant sure defeat for anyone in that time.

Mis en garde Monsieur!!!!

 

We walked in the freezing northerly gale to photograph these cute shaggy donkeys.

Lunch was ridiculous and took 90 minutes to eat.  Every morsel was deliciouis and toward half time we were noticed by a little 6 year old girl who wandered away from her family.  She was gorgeous and delighted us with her laughter and taunts.  Happy memories of Ariane when she was six.  This went on for 30 minutes until it was time for her to go and her parents laughingly dragged her away with many goodbyes on either side.

A different scene after lunch from our first visit with the driving misty rain so we took refuge in the church where we fell asleep after lighting a candle.  We stayed there until it was time to get the 5:40 bus home.  There are only 3 bus runs on a Sunday, meaning the next and last service was in another 3 hours.
Tide was out when we left St Martin.

A really nice day on the bus, on the coast and eating of course.  Life can be enjoyed.

3rd October 2015

Les Portes en Re was the destination today, just north of us and around 6km distance. 

A very pretty village, it had a market finishing up and we had a quick walkabout, picked up a baguette and had lunch on the beach.  With only the birds, crabs and the bees for company. 

Walking around the tidal pools

Nap on the beach for Guy.

So many colours and the water so blue and no wind at all.

We brought too much butter but we threw it all in anyway.

It's the fig thief again ...but in French it is known as qualitie controlee.  If the figs are no good you complain to the owner.  All in all they are live saving figs

A really really old house near the bird sanctuary, the most important one in Europe. (The sanctuary not the house).

 

 Some cormorants drying themselves.

An egret, one of hundreds in the area fishing.

A panorama of the salt production system meeting the sea.

 Monsieur doing his daily inspection of thee salt  evaporation pens pour la qualitie.

October 2, 2015

We have seen a lot of things in our days on the Ile. Motor homes galore! One even towing a horse float, and one caravan behind a tractor. Tractors of some variety basically everywhere on any road you can imagine, often with many other road users behind him.

Today we spotted more bunnies; a pheasant, cormoran, egrets and the usual variety of geese, chickens, white swans, ducks, falcons, buzzards and other smaller birds.

The villages are surrounded by fields of grapes and vegetables of a great variety, then all the salt pans, which are magnificently engineered by allowing water from the Atlantic to come into the maze of the pans, and ultimately returned to the ocean by an outgoing ditch, opened at low tide.

We explored the last mentioned today when we found the Ecomuseum of the salt pans on the way to Loix. We rocked up at opening time after lunch shortly followed by a bus of teenagers come for a " week of education "! Despite all the rapid french we were able to follow most of it. Had a look around the different pans and their stage in the production cycle.

The amazing engineering relies solely on the height of the tides to regulate the inflow and outflow'
The system produces 59  kg of salt every two days per final pad which are the shallow little concrete pads where the amount of salt measures 30 grams per litre of sea water

This shows the final stages of the evaporation maze

Via the super market at Ars, we headed home. The day warmed up beautifully and there was hardly any wind, which was awesome.
Monsieur was trimming the vines after the harvest

 We headed to the Phare and decided to have dinner again at Chez Marie, which had Mussels and Fries for Guy and the usual amazing crepe for Caroline followed by desserts.