June 4 – La Rochelle, France

Weather – 18º, WINDY! a few sprinkles

cool door in courtyard

Steps – 9,442

Humidity – 30%

Rocking and rolling doesn’t quite describe how last night’s motion of the ocean was. The captain warned us that there would be motion, but WOW! We were soooooo confident what ever the night brought us, we’d have experienced worse…I’m not so sure.

I’m not sure if it is the small size of the boat (this is 12,000 tonnes VS Regent’s

town buildings

48,000) or the mechanics of it – over the years we have learned the importance of stabilizers. Apparently, this boat has them, but it doesn’t exactly feel like it. I suppose I don’t know what it would feel like without, I don’t want to find out.

Thankfully, we didn’t feel any seasickness. That

marina with town gates in distance

isn’t surprising, as we’ve never felt it before, but we always wonder if we just haven’t been in rocky enough seas.

The old adage “one hand for the ship” definitely applied last night when venturing to the loo – not much of a venture, kind of what I think the distance in an RV might be…this room is tight.

beautiful door

Speaking of room size, this one and the Regent room is about the same square footage – this 280 and Regent 300. This space here doesn’t seem to be used as well – about half of the space here is

the beautiful port & the STEEP gangway

used for a ‘sitting area’ and the rest for the bed, closet and bathroom. We trip over each other much more here.

We docked by 8AM and didn’t need to be off the ship until after noon, so showering wasn’t impacted by any rocking and rolling.

Before this cruise is done, we will be spending a day in Guernsey, UK – therefore we need a UK entry visa. Everyone not a UK citizen was reminded of this in a

Cafe de la Paix for Pineau

letter this morning which also told us we needed to prove it to the ship. We got the visa (2 year, £20) last year when we were in the UK, but Chris had to get a new one this morning because he has a new passport. – it was an easy online procedure. That was the extent of the morning’s activity.

We grabbed small breakfasts from the ship’s Coffee Corner of cappuccinos and pastries and sat in the lounge all by ourselves to read - many people are off on morning tours.

Bunker Museum

Our afternoon tour of La Rochelle (pop. 80,000) started with a 20-minute drive from the port to the old town. La Rochelle’s port lacked 100% of Bordeaux’s picturesque charm – you win some, you lose some.

This part of tours is always interesting, because it gives the guide a chance to talk about the town and area in general.

Once in the old town, Christine our guide, supplied all of us with listening systems – a device each of us wears around our necks with an attached earpiece. Surprisingly, tours rarely use these, but they are brilliant – no need to be close to the guide to hear.

Chris and Christine our guide

We followed Christine as she described what we were seeing

one of a few half-timber houses

We also visited the WWII Bunker Museum for a self-guided tour. This was very interesting - in an actual underground bunker built by the Germans in 1941 when they occupied La Rochelle. It was a good reminder that France was not just at war during WWII but occupied. There were about 20 of us down there, I’m not sure if the intent of the museum was to give a feeling of claustrophobia, but that was felt. There were displays of what the Germans used the bunker for, but also what life was like in La Rochelle during the war.

Under German occupation, bunkers were also built in the port area (La Pallice) for submarines. It was used for the movie Das Boot.

Hotel du Ville (City Hall)

After the bunker the walking tour continued until the last half an hour of the tour when we found a charming place (Café de la Paix - a beautiful 19^th century building with ornate decoration) for a Pineau - a local apéritif. Pineau is a fortified wine, made from unfermented or lightly fermented grape juice fortified with Cognac. It was lovely (€4.5) – sweet and cold.

so close I couldn't get it all

We missed the Captain’s welcome on the first half of the cruise, so went to it tonight. We usually aren’t big on these events but wanted to know who these folks were when we’ve seen them around the ship.

Lori - you got that right!!! One of the songs was Summer of '69, we were the only Canadians, of course Bryan Adams is international, but many didn't know him - she didn't.

the ship's excursion team