Rochefort to St Porchaire

Thursday 22nd Oct.
Rochefort to St Porchaire
What a day, well apart from breakfast in the super duper B&B which was great (every kind of croissant, gateaux, brioche) but we asked for coffee and the other 6 French guests went for tea but when they saw our coffee they all wanted to dunk their brioche in our coffee and madam didn’t reckon the two of us could possibly want more coffee so it was short rations and very miffed we were too. For once we felt quite youthful as the other guests were seriously ancient and only in Rochefort for the benefit of the Roman spa and mud baths which allegedly has a magnificent effect on your health.
Anyway we left them and rode down to the river and parked up outside La Corderie Royale; a huge building about 250mtrs long commissioned by Louis XV as the rope making factory for all the naval ships being built in France at the time. It had to be that big to accommodate the length of rope a warship needed at the time. It is now a museum and frankly it’s amazing, similar to the tin shed coconut hair rope making factory we visited in Kerala only 100 times larger, using similar methods only 100 times bigger, only difference is this one’s now decommissioned and obsolete and the Indian one – well well! Also at the Corderie Royale was an exhibition of how a Frenchman had designed and built both the Suez and Panama Canals. Very good stuff with video footage as well but no mention of the fact the Brits had a fairly big stake in the Suez at all. Maybe history lessons at the schools I went to were biased!
From there to Louis XV’s dry dock where the French are reconstructing at a cost of 15m euros the La Hermione a warship first built in 1768 and taken by Lafayette to help the Republicans in the American War of Independence. Apparently their intervention had some effect because the French are very proud of it. Anyway this warship is being reconstructed using exactly the same materials but modern tools and obviously some deference to ‘elf and safety’ so it won’t be exactly the same but as good as. They are due to knock down the bricked up entrance to the 250 year old dry dock in 2012, let in the next high tide and tow her out for rigging and then sail her back to the USA. The ship is huge and quite beautiful and if I’m spared I really want to be here to see this happen. Memo to Douglas, Willie or William – you should be here too!!
Anyway, after that we headed off for St Porchaire which was a lovely ride across slightly undulating countryside stopping at the old Abbey at Trizay which happens to be close to another of those places where you can start your walk to Compostele but we didn’t see anyone on the roadside so we guessed the leaden skies had put them off starting, or they don’t start on Thursdays.
Tonight’s B&B is a very pleasant gite proudly boasting it’s ‘green credentials’ hot water by solar energy they proclaimed, a double flush loo, only rainwater used on the garden - after a tepid shower we wished they were more concerned with the welfare of their clients than the planet.