Saturday 21st April - St. Malo to La Rochelle

There were virtually no precautions being taken on our arrival in France to safeguard against foot and mouth - we drove over a disinfectant mat at the harbour, that's all....seems a bit dilatory, but hey, what do I know?

Having arrived on French soil at 10.15 we'd decided to 'leg it' down to La Rochelle. What a boring drive. Stretches of motorway interspersed by the excitement of terrain as flat as a crêpe, the odd tree and a grazing cow here and there - that's northern France for you.

La Rochelle is an oasis of hustle, bustle and activity in this otherwise barren desert. I'm sure La Rochelle is famous for something (could it be that Napoleon's fleet set off from here??). It's a pretty town, popular with the yachting fraternity and today was market day so the place was buzzing with people.

Found a nice hotel to stay in - the slightly oddly named 'Hotel de la Monnaie'. The hotel building is an armoury dating back to the 16th century and has been pleasantly modernised, retaining a mix of old and new. When we got upstairs I could hear buzzing coming from somewhere but couldn't identify the source. I was starting to think that the noise would probably bug the hell out of me during the night but didn't make an issue of it since we were all feeling pretty cheery to finally be out of the car.

Finding a place to eat was a bit of a struggle. The old town is lined wall to wall with restaurants - which is great - but they all seemed to be serving seafood and little else (not really to the girls' liking). We finally found a pizza place, and if last year's visit to France is anything to go by, this will be the first of many....in fact I'd hazard a guess that we will either be looking like pizza or McDonalds fast food by the end of the holiday.

When we got back to the hotel Charlotte wearily lay her head on top of my little suitcase and suddenly sat up to say:

'Hey, that buzzing's coming from your bag Mum'.

La Rochelle seems like a nice town but they certainly need to do something to clean up the streets - my lasting impression of the place is one of dog poop. In lumps, in smears, over here, over there, in the road, on the pavement...on your shoes.

Not nice, not nice at all.

Next day.....wigs, helmut hair and life under a microscope.......