France, Bordeaux to La Rochelle: Saint-Palais-sur-Mer

From Bordeaux, we board our shuttle and travel for two hours to Saint-Palais-sur-Mer and arrive at the Villa Quest, our home for the next two nights. We are in the middle of a coastal resort town with an offical population of about 500. We are told that most of the homes are vacation homes and that the town is basically deserted in the wintertime. Our hotel room is small; the online hotel advertisement provides measurements of each room. So bring the smaller suitcase.

We arrive dressed in bike clothes, get fitted for our bikes, which for me mainly means adjusting the seat. Forward, back, up, down, etc. It’s just never ending to get it right and keep it there. So I am the last person heading out on our short four-mile warmup ride. It’s just a loop along the ocean and around the outskirts of town. I stop long enough to take one photo of the path along the Atlantic.

Before dinner, our group of 13 plus 2 guides meets over appetizers for introductions. Our guides are both from France and near the area where we are bicycling. Both worked for AirFrance for 30 years and have made many trips to the U.S. during their careers.

Dinner that evening is at Chez Bob, a short walk from the hotel and along the beach where we have an excellent cod dish.

Dessert is Cafe Gourmand and includes chocolate mousse, a macaron, cheesecake, and a cream puff. I didn’t get to eat this – left before it was served to go back to the hotel.

Walking back along the beach.

The next morning we have breakfast at 7:30, route review at 8:30, and are on the bikes by 9 am.

Everyone heads out at their own pace and it doesn’t take long before we are widely separated along the morning’s 17-mile ride. We start out along the ocean and my first stop is to take a photo of the carrelets, fishing huts at the end of piers, some of which are privately owned and others, for pubic use. We see many of these stork-like buildings during the week.

We are biking on the La Vélodysée, a 1,200 kilometer bike path that stretches along the coast from Brittany to the border of Spain. On this map we are south of La Rochelle and just north of Royan.

Riding along a nicely paved section of the bike path.

A large part of our ride is along the Gironde Estuary where the Garonne and Dordogne Rivers meet and flow into the Atlantic. It’s the largest estuary in Europe.

Our ride took us through Royan known as the “martyred” city. During World War II, this area was one of the last pockets of German resistance and in early 1945 Royan was destroyed by Allied bombers but mostly French citizens were victims of the bombing. Nearly the entire city was rebuilt during the 1950s including the church pictured below.

Another photo overlooking the estuary with Ross’ e-bike in the foreground. Because of his illness the week prior to travel and his continuing cough, he decided to give himself a break and try an e-bike on this trip. It was a bit of a learning experience, how to balance the shifting of gears with the “e-assist” function, but he was glad he tried this.

Further along the route we breeze through the resort town of Meschers-sur-Gironde.

Throughout this part of France we kept noticing the red trim on houses.

A short section of downhill toward a lighthouse.

Always have to stop and take photos of the poppies along the road.

After 12 miles we reach the Caves of Matata. These are troglodyte caves cut into the chalky limestone cliffs and we stop here for a visit.

A photo of the inside of one of the caves.

Looking down towards an entrance.

These caves date from the 8th century and were initially used for storage including storage of pirate plunder. Later, religious refugees used them as places to live. The photo below is of a troglodyte woman.

A more modernized cave home.

We continue on for another five miles after leaving the Caves of Matata, riding here along a gravel section of the path.

Then we arrive in Talmont-sur-Gironde for lunch.

Lunch was at the La Brise restaurant and we had fish and chips.

This would become a frequent choice for us throughout the trip.

After lunch there was a guided walking tour of the town, considered one of France’s beautiful villages. Below is The Church of St. Radegonde built in 1094 as a stop for early pilgrims.

Talmont-sur-Gironde was a walled city, built around the church in the late 1200s. The city was destroyed by the Spaniards in the 1600s but parts of the original wall still stand.

Fresh catch of the day. These commercial fisherman had docked and were unloading their fish.

The fish were so big their flopping moved around the storage tubs. I forgot what type of fish these were. Not sturgeon, but while at the Matata Caves, we learned that the European Sturgeon, an endangered species, can now only be found in Europe in the Gironde Estuary. This sturgeon when fully grown can reach 20 feet in length but it takes 8-12 years to reach maturity. We saw some in a tank at the Caves that were about 8 inches in length.