France...:-)

After a brilliant sleep on the ferry I arrived at St Malo at about 08:30 on Saturday morning.  Headed off towards Ile de re, a small island off the French coast near to La Rochelle.  The first person I spoke to in France was a fella from Birmingham who parked next to me at a service station on a Blackbird. After that a French biker started talking to me and told me a quicker route on the motorway, rather than just following the signs.  I told the Brummie this but he obviously didn't trust the French (not a great way to be in France but eh!)  He left ages before me, I went the other way and ended up in front of him as he came flying past me eventually.

I left the motorway and started headed through on the French equivalent of our A roads.  This was much more fun and interesting.  In one village I saw a wedding taking place and had to stop because all the guests were in costume from the Medieval times and the bride and groom were in a horse drawn carriage.  It looked great although it did remind me a bit of Crommies' birthday party last year and I could actually see his wedding going down like that but he'd probably need a karaoke in one of the carriages :)

When I got to Ile de re I made my way through to St Martin and stayed at the municipal campsite.  Everyone was really friendly, there was a cafe on the site and when I went for tea I asked the waitress to only speak to me in French and I was really chuffed that I could hold conversation.  I stayed for two nights and one evening whilst walking past a tent a French couple offered me a drink with them and again I chatted in French.

St Martin was a lovely little place with a fortification that was built to keep out the English, didn't work this time though, I sneaked in under the Manx flag.  I was amazed at the size of the moat, I may be being a bit thick here but I always thought they were about 10 foot wide, they were on Robin Hood.  This one was massive and hopefully the photo I took will show this.

There is a lovely harbour surrounded by bars and restaurants and there is a little park which has donkeys taking kids around.  They look different to our Blackpool ones, they are bigger and furrier and they wear culottes.  They do this because originally they were used in agriculture and because Ile de re has salt marshes there are more insects around.  The culottes were to stop the donkeys being bit whilst in the field.