France: Richelieu, La Rochelle, Port des Barques, Rochefort, Trizay, Cognac
Sunflowers make you smile. You just can't help it. Field after field of them. Wonderful.
We stop at Richelieu which turned out to be a fascinating place. Was quite important at one time. The palace was sold stone by stone but the grounds remained intact behind this massive wall. The locals now benefit from this. There was just something about the place.
La Rochelle. An amazing port. Frank did another tower climb. There was a festival starting the next day and we were lucky to catch the rehearsal. We came a bit unstuck with our plat du jour - ham and cheese crepe, followed by a chocolate crepe; both lovely but too much together, however I don't remember us actually leaving any leftovers!
Port des Borques. Very different. Fishing 'village' - about 100 houses. We never did find out what these fishing platforms ever did. There was an enormous tidal range.
Taken at sunset, the fishing platforms look like a scene from Star Wars.
We realised we haven't seen many sunsets - we are not usually up this late (10:00pm !! :))This reminded us of Broome.
Thank goodness Frank likes Arsenal. We'd been looking all over for the office of tourism. According to the map it had to be here. Frank spots Arsenal written on the arch and wanders over - and guess what was hidden right behind?
The ladies were very helpful and assisted us finding, what turned out to be in our top three places we've stayed - Trizay. We think they were just happy to have something to do. I bet not many people find them.
Top notch accommodation. Private balcony, with day beds. Fluffy dressing gowns and slippers. Jacuzzi, pool, lake, 5 star restaurant. Plus we only paid E100 per night as we got a last minute deal. Trizay is well out of the way but we didn't care :)
We never tire of the amazing architecture. Cognac is picture perfect.
We have a tour of the Hennessey distillery, inclusive of a small boat ride to the warehouses aboard the Hennessey boat.
Just look at the year on the barrel. The cognac would have been in approximately 20 different barrels during its life. The 8 testers have declared it still can improve. The blending of the spirits is fascinating. takes 10 years to master.
Cognac is a brandy, but not all brandy is cognac. We have tastings at the end of the tour, thankfully Frank is driving, so I get his share. I LOVE cognac.
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