Up early to get our car at the train station. The taxi got us close to the station, but once again you can only get close because of the road construction. The station was deserted. All of the offices were dark and the escalator was not working! It was a one-day strike throughout France about some social issues!

We managed to find the Avis office which was open, but discovered the car we had rented was not available. We had to settle for a Mercedes. We did get a bit lost on the way to the freeway, but we were driving in the right direction and were on the highway to Saintes and La Rochelle before we knew it.

We didn't have a map of Saintes, so by the time we got a parking spot in town it was lunch time and we were far from the Roman arena. We found a Crêperie in Saintes that had a very strong local following. Always a good sign.

As we wandered down to the river and back to our car, we saw the Arch of Germanicus which dates from 19 AD. This arch marked the entrance to the Roman bridge over the Charente river. Later, our tour lead us to the Catédral de St. Pierre. It is undergoing major repairs, but is still impressive for a small city like Saintes.

Next we headed north to La Rochelle. Since it was late in the afternoon, we decided to get a room at the Campanile [large European hotel/restaurant chain] in Puilboreau, just outside of La Rochelle. We proved, once again, that without a map of the area, you can even get lost in a small town. We got so lost we ended up in La Rochelle, so we backtracked until we found a service station. There we got both a map and instructions on how to get to the Campanile.

After checking in we went directly into La Rochelle. Even with the map in hand, I managed to tell Jan to take a wrong turn. It was a lucky turn, since we found the location of the shuttle bus into the old town of La Rochelle. That was a lot easier than finding parking in the old town.

Our walk around La Rochelle wasn't as much fun as I'd hoped. Just about the time we got into the city, the clouds rolled in, the temperature dropped and the winds picked up. It is still easy to see why La Rochelle is the third most visited city in France. The whole harbor area looks like a Medieval movie set. At the right you see the seaward wall of the old city. The forground tower is the Tour de la Chaîne which contained a chain that was drawn across the harbor entrance in times of war. The tower in the distance is the Tour de la Lanterne that was used to house prisoners (mostly foreign sailors) in the 17th-19th centuries.

The Tour St-Nicolas and the Tour de la Chaîne [below left] were used to defend the harbor. The harbor is now the biggest yatching harbor on France's Atlantic coast. The Grosse Horloge (below right) is one of the main gates into the old city.