Souvenir of La Rochelle

Since I mentioned about La Rochelle in the earlier post, you might have wondered: where the heck is the place located? If you try to reach the city of La Rochelle from Paris, it will be about 500 km to the southwest of France. If you come from Spain, it will be also around 500 km away from the nearest city to the border, Barcelona.

If you drive, you can reach La Rochelle by Autoroute A10 (highway) from Paris. But to most visitors coming from outside of France territory, the practical transportations are either aeroplane or train (another possibility is by boat if you try to enter France soil illegally, but I would not recommend that :)).

There is a flight scheduled from Paris and you can land either at La Rochelle (Aéroport de La Rochelle) or Bordeaux (Aéroport de Bordeaux-Mérignac). For me, taking the train is more convenient and efficient (only less faster compared to taking flight). If you are in a hurry, the plane will carry you for about 45 minutes.
But if you prefer a relaxing, sight seeing journey, then choose train aka SNCF. There is a choice between express train and TGV (Train a Grande Vitesse – High Speed Train). The fastest train from Paris will reach Le Gare de La Rochelle in less 6 hours.

Even though La Rochelle is a small city (about eighty thousand of population), it will be crowded with tourists between May and September of the year. This is the place where everybody likes to go during summer. And everybody means almost every Europeans! Just imagine, La Rochelle welcomes about three million tourists per year. 

What make the city so special? Its nice weather maybe. Or its people, warming and welcoming. Or the scene and background of the city. And how about a view of Atlantic Ocean from a restaurant? Yes, the heart of the city is located facing the ocean. Which mean it has some old building like ports, castles, and islands not far away from its’ beaches. Some attractions that will always pop up include Vieux Port, Tour Saint-Nicolas, City Hall, Aquarium, Musee de Maritime etc. You can also go island hopping to Ile de re, Ile d'Aix and Ile d'Oleron (of course not to forget Fort Boyard also).

Hmm.. sound interesting, right? The city or also called port-town is quite warm throughout the year due to the influence of the Gulf Stream waters, and insolation is remarkably high, on a par with the French Riviera on the Mediterranean Southern coast of France (where the more popular Cannes and Nice located). In other words, it’s not too cold in winter and not too hot in summer. But beware, sometime it can be very windy during autumn and it can reach 160kmph!

And in case I didn’t inform you, this is where I stayed for about 3 years to finish my Degree.