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| Nantes Cathedral |
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| La Rochelle Gare |
Our next destination was the town of Fontenay-le-Comte, forty minutes by road northwest of La Rochelle. We caught the early morning train from Saint Malo, stopping in Nantes for an hour before arriving in La Rochelle. I had been in Nantes in the early 80s with the destroyer HMCS Iroquois, having sailed up the Loire River to this city, not remembering much of my last visit here except for the high prices we sailors were charged for beer! Marie and I had to wait another three hours for a bus to Fontenay-le-Comte while in La Rochelle so we sat outside the train station and had more than a few beers in the warm sun. We arrived at 4 Rue Benjamin Fillon at 7PM and were greeted by our hosts Lucette and Bernard after a short walk up the hill from the bus station. Their home was spectacularly old - built in 1650 - and typical of the architecture we were to see all over the town. This part of the town is in a conservation area restricting development and except for the tiny cars on the narrow streets you might think you were still living in the 16th century! Our room was huge, the centuries old massive ceiling beams as solid as the day they were installed by generations long gone, the stone stairs rounded by hundreds of year of wear. It was here from this region that many of Marie's ancestors left for the New World in the 17th century and she was hoping to be able to trace some of these long distant relatives.
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| Notre Dame Cathedral, 15th century |
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| enjoying breakfast at our B&B |
Fontenay-le-Comte sits astride the River Vendee and was a former port town along the Roman coastal road, though now miles from the sea. As the marshes gradually silted up the land was drained by the Benedictine monks, the sea receded and by the end of the 19th century the town was all but finished as a port. We walked around the old walled medieval castle, now just ramparts and a remaining tower so we had to use our imagination. Surrounding these ruins is the Renaissance heart of the town dating from the 15th and 16th centuries. And surrounding that is the modern outer commercial sector we stayed away from. We had a chance to visit the magnificent Notre Dame cathedral, built in the 'flamboyant gothic' style, with its stunning stained glass windows and it's creepy Roman style crypt from the 11th century, the old and crumbling cemetery which I found very photogenic, the marketplace where we were caught in a sudden rain shower, and the small local history museum. Marie made some enquiries and left her name at the town hall and she had the chance to speak to a local businessman with common ancestors in Quebec before leaving. The next day we were returning to La Rochelle, our last port of call on the trip. With it's Quebec connection as well it would be a fitting city to end our month long wandering. gws
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| La Vendee |
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| Notre Dame Cemetery |
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| we had to walk through the garden to our room |
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| Notre Dame, Fontenay-le-Compte |
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| museum at Fontenay-le-Comte |
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| view from Château de Terre-Neuve (not our Newfoundland) |
