Time to celebrate Christmas! Most years, we celebrate Christmas apart, which is a real pain, so this year we decided to to do it together. So the plan was to head down to La Rochelle a few days before xmas, spend Christmas even there, and then for me to head down to Paris, from where I was to fly to Finland for a bit of post-Christmas fun.
As we were flying via. Nantes, we naturally decided to pop over at Aude and Magaye's place for a quick visit - they kindly cooked a nice lunch for us. From there, we took Bla Bla car down to La Rochelle (travelling between "provincial towns" in France is a bit of a pain, so a car pooling service like Bla Bla car is really handy).
Our stay in Puilboreau was pretty much as usual - that is to say, very nice. Francoise and Etienette sure know how to spoil us with good food, of the home-cooked, hearty kind, which of course is the best! Apart from that, our routines involved daily games of Scrabble with Joel (where I disgracefully and consistently lost, as usual), and a few runs in the surrounding countryside.
We did pop over to La Rochelle to catch a movie - the excellent, if somewhat depressing Manchester-on-the-Sea. La Rochelle is definitely one of the nicer cities in France, picturesque, yet human sized. I love walking around the old port - even if the rainy weather wasn't the best for outdoors activity.
On Thursday, we went for lunch to a nice restaurant just across the sea from the Ile de Re, a very beautiful, charming island we cycled around last year. After a tasty lunch in the panoramic restaurant (a pity the fog meant the view towards Ile de Re wasn't exactly splendid), we crossed the bridge and walked around for a bit in Rivedoux, the first village on the other side of the bridge. A lovely little place, with its typical white houses, and lovely sea-side views. We also checked out La Flotte, the next village down the coastline, this one even more picturesque, with its beautiful little port.
No Christmas celebration is complete without a Christmas swim. I was a little bit put off by the rather miserable weather, which showed no signs of brightening up. But, filled with foolish pride, I decided to have a swim anyway, accompanied by Mathilde and Herquise (who both wisely stayed on the beach, though). I can't say it was a very enjoyable swim (compared to the winter swimming on a sunny Cote d'Azur). But hey, at least I can now proudly say I did it, right? (OK, fair enough, nobody cares...)
For Christmas eve, we were joined by Nathalie, Herve and their lovely rascals Titouan and Colin, both energetic as usual. The food was, as expected, absolutely delicious (oysters, followed by pearl hen, followed by my favourite - Le Buche de Noel!). And then of course we got to open the pressies - yoppii. All in all, a fantastic Christmas celebration then!
The next day, 'twas sadly time for me to say bye bye to Mathilde and the others, jump on the train, and head down to Paris, from where I was catching a flight to Helsinki.
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