Carrots and Spice: France 2010

We got up early to take full advantage of the day. We had already decided that during this second week we would leave the car alone and go everywhere on bikes. (Very Centre Parcs) We therefore walked down to the closest bike hire shop and selected a bike each. Obviously Dyl had to chose an off road mountain bike. Not sure why as there are no mountains and not really much off roadness around but Dyls being Dyls would prove us wrong...

All eager and ready for an ensuing adventure we set off on our bikes with a map of the island in hand. We decided to head out to the North of where we were staying to the other side of the island where the map indicated the location of a castle. This took our journey through a vast landscape of salt marshes which seemed to stretch on forever. A lot of the paths had been washed away by the hurricane storms which hit the area in the spring. Even after much repair and restoration it was easy to see the devastating storm damage that had occurred.

When we arrived at our mini adventure’s destination and eventually found the castle it turned out to be a lot smaller than we expected. We could also see that the castle and this area of coastline had also suffered severely form the storms. There were barely any trees left, just splintered stumps and the terrain under our feet had been ripped apart. I imagine that the area was very beautiful before and it was a shame to see it like this. I went to take a closer look at this mini castle. There wasn’t much there really.

Il de Re - Storm damaged castle

On my return an elderly couple were setting up their picnic on this devastated beach. I wondered if they came there every year and how different it must look to them this year. We watched them as they set up their little picnic. They carefully reversed their Citroen onto the area beside the beach. They then unloaded a small trestle table and chairs and proceeded to arrange at least three courses of French cuisine, including fresh oysters to start and the most beautiful looking desert for desert. Feeling our stomachs beginning to rumble, we headed off back to local town to find something to eat ourselves.

Further along the path there were some plots of land that appeared to have once held summer houses that were now replaced with the odd caravan or tent.

By now it was lunchtime and we had lunch in a bistro at the market square. Meanwhile the kids had gone into the market and purchased some doughnuts which were so delicious that we went back for more. Unfortunately the stall holder had packed up and gone home. To this day our search for the best doughnut seller in World continues. We set off back to La Couarde and promptly got lost in the village we were currently in, which must be a record since the village covers about 400 Sq. m in total. The road out passed the Salt museum and it rained.

We decided to divert off to a beach further down the coast in case it was somewhere we would like to vist during our stay. Unfortunately the beach looked a bit storm damaged as all the sand had gone!