A strange way to start off with my posts this time, but I thought you might like to see a carved door decoration from La Rochelle. The old doors sometimes have the most interesting features.

I have a lot of things to post later, and will try to put something on this blog every two weeks from now on. Sometimes it may be very small, but I hope to make it interesting and worthwhile.

This time we're dealing with a walled town and oysters. (???)

One of our favorite people here in La Rochelle, Frère Henri Rateau. He is a retired railway (SNCF) worker and counselor in the bishopric, and he and his wife live in la Taillée, a tiny town north and east of here. They drive about 45 kilometers each way to church each Sunday. This was taken at his home when we were invited there for lunch (le déjeuner).

This is the town of Brouage, a small city built in the 1500s and 1600s that was part of the defenses of coastal France. Originally it was a regular town, but later on 6,000 soldiers were stationed here. It is very close to the ocean. The town now is mostly a tourist attraction, but is very pleasant and interesting. The wall that was originally around the city is intact, as are the church, the mess hall, the small convent church on the left, the powder magazine, and other buildings

A posterboard in the town shows the original layout of the walls, the roads, the buildings, and the waterways around the town of Brouage. Samuel de Champlain lived here part of the time, and this was where he went to church (for those of you who aren't up on Canadian history, he was one of the founders of Quebec). The church still exists, and in the preceeding photo you can see the toweer in the middle of the town.

This is a small part of the wall you saw in the preceding picture of the wall around the city. The horse just happened to be coming by when I got ready to take the photo, so I waited for it to arrive in the right spot. The ocean is about 1 mile away from this point, but used to be a lot closer.

Here is a section of the wall, next to what used to be one of the corner towers, now overgrown with grass and weeds. You can see the people in the distance, giving you a better idea of how tall the wall was.

This is taken from a corner where there used to be a small watch tower. What you are looking at across the way is an opening in the wall that was used for a small port. This whole area was at one point under water, allowing small boats to bring and take goods right up to the wall.

This is a closeup of the door to the small port. YOu can see the coat of arms of the city on the wall above the doorway. There is a wide area for unloading or loading goods, and a small, very solid doorway at the rear that opens into the town.

When I walked out onto this area to take the photo, I became aware of the fact that it is still very wet here!

One of the most unusual buildings I've seen in my visits to any old city anywhere. It is a building originally built in the 1600s, called a glacier (not it isn't a "glacier" in English, but an icehouse). It goes very deep into the ground, and used to hold 40 tons of ice. I was surprised to find out they had the ice and used it for cooling and also to make sorbets!

Probably my favorite photo of Brouages, showing the walls and three watch towers. The red flowers on the right are actually growing on the edge of the wall, and below them are an abrupt drop off about 15 feet high. The tiny towers would have held one or two people, and had slits in the walls for shooting at the enemy. You can also see the 5 foot wide ditch down below that runs completely around the town.

This is Fort Louvois, just off the coast and near a town which you don't want to try to pronounce - Bourcefranc-le-Chapus. It was built in the 1700s for coastal defence. This walkway was still partially submerged when we arrived there, but as the tide went out, it became clear. The funny things you see on the right are part of the oyster business in the area.

More on that as we go along.

This is looking back on the walkway towards town. What you see on the left looks strange, I'll admit. A tractor in the ocean? It is putting a boat in that is used in the oyster harvest. These boats are flat bottomed, as they work in shallow water where the oysters are growing. This area of France is a very important center for Europe oyster culture.

These are racks of oysters that are still growing. Very small oysters (seed oysters, I think they are called) are put in these netting type sacks, put on racks, and then are nourished by the ocean and grow to harvestable size. When they are ready, the sacks are picked up and brought to shore and taken to the markets.

This is looking back along the walkway towards the town, about 2/3 of the way to the fort. You can see the oyster racks on both side, poking just barely our of the water.

While we were walking to the fort, a boat loaded with newly harvested sacks of oysters came by. They speed along powered by 50 - 100 hp motors. We saw several others during our walk, coming and going.

This is Liz, and Alan and Tove Rigby, our friends from St. Rogatien. The fort was closed, so this is the best I could do to show the gate etc. We had a good time anyway!

We visited a small garden that is supposed to be representative of Moroccan plants. This flower was not labeled, so I don't know the name of it, but it was unusual and very attractive.

We rode to the garden I just mentioned using bikes that are available for two hours free of charge, then went for a ride down a bike path next to the train lines. There are bike paths along many of the roads in the city, and lots of paths along the ocean and in the parks.

La Rochelle used to be a heavily fortified city. This was one of the entrances past a deep ditch and over a drawbridge. It's on the east side of the city, not far from our apartment, and is called "Porte Royale".

This is another main gate, on the north side of the old city, called "Porte Dauphine". This lead to roads going to Nantes and coastal cities, whereas the one before went to Angers, Paris, and the central areas of France. This one is much more decorative than the other, although both were well protected.

If you stood on the west side of the Porte Dauphine and looked ahead of you, you would see this deep depression and stone wall. This wall used to completely encircle the city, and had watch towers and soldiers along it. Much of it was destroyed in the siege of La Rochelle in the 1600s.

Now the city has other invaders, called "film makers". Because if its history, and the beautiful and unique downtown area, a lot of movies are made here. I don't know what this was about, but they were having a good time when I went by.

What are all these people watching, and where did they all come from? I didn't think there were this many people in the whole city! And where do you get the ice cream cones? (Sorry, but I don't have a photo for that answer)

Some people have less concern than I do about their health! On the right side of the tower is a.....diving platform. 12 divers from around the world gathered here for a televised competition. They were judged on their form etc.,just like Olympic diving. I have no idea who won, and we didn't stay long enough to see all of them compete. As far as I know, they all lived to tell the tale.

Here goes one of the divers. I don't know how high these divers were, but it's well ove 100'. Too high for me - I like the low board in the pool, not the high board into the small channel between two towers!

This is for the boys in the crowd. This fellow is skinning an eel that he just caught near the port. He said that it would be good to eat, but the smaller ones are better! Personally, I'll trust his opinion and won't, in all likelihood, try to figure that one out for myself.

This is what our port looks like when we have an extremely low tide. This is the lowest I have ever seen it. There is a canal that comes in at the right, and there are dozens of fish that can be seen in the water in the front of the photo. People do fish in the canal where it goes back into the city.

This is us with a brother and sister who live together in the part of the city called L' Homeau. His wife left him many years ago, and his sister moved in several years ago to share expenses. He owns a beautiful home on several acres, where he has planted hundreds of trees over the last 40 years. He comes to our English class and is a strong Catholic, but he enjoys discussing common beliefs with us and the elders here.

In one of the side areas of the cathedral of St. Louis is a room where many pictures of ships are displayed. These were dontated by sailors or ship owners who feel that their lives and ship were spared by God in the midst of terrible storms or other natural disasters. Most of them are from the 1700s.

This is a painting from 1768, and you can imagine how frightening it must have been for them, judging by the severity of the storm they were in.

Last photo in this posting. This "ship" doesn't seem to be in any trouble, but how on earth does a tractor and wagon travel through the ocean? It seems that the water is very shallow there at low tide, and the bottom is solid stone. Don't ask me what he was doing out there!