Morning and Evening

Great to be staying in one place, so after a leisurely rise at about 7:30 am we set out on a walk to the adjoining about 10 mins walk away which is part of the town we are staying at, St-Palais-sur-Mer,  The beach is rather strangely named Plage de Bureau which literally means Office beach - there was someone with a laptop sat on it, so I guess they were taking it literally.  Anyway, L was looking for a place to have a typical French croissant and a cup of hot chocolate.  We saw a rather posh looking hotel that had people eating breakfast outside, so I inquired as to whether as non guests we could have breakfast there.  Bien sur, said the gentleman I asked, and set a table for us.  As it was a buffet, we walked inside to find not a croissant inside, but instead, what looked more like a chain hotel breakfast.  I went to explain that we had decided against it, but suddenly he was nowhere to be found.  So we slunk off down the road, and just like the wise men in the story, planned another route back so we wouldn't have to pass by the same hotel!  We did however find the perfect if expensive spot for a croissant and the hot chocolate that L wanted - see extra.

Anyway, after a lovely rest and nap, we ventured on to our beach with the intention of swimming in the sea, at least I was.  One of our neighbours said he wouldn't swim because of the jellyfish, but I decided to do some extremely speculative googling, and was amazed to find a website with Jellyfish incidences in Royan, with a map and different colours for how bad they were.  Looked good to me, so in I went, and glad too as it was so refreshing on a lovely warm day.  Oh, and rumours that the French had abandoned topless sunbathing are all nonsense.

Once back and showered, we had cocktails with our friends from Leeds and went back to St-Palais-sur-Mer to a restaurant just off the beach, I had Moules Frites and we both had Filet de Julienne, which is a fish apparently called 'Ling' in english.  The french name sounds infinitely more appetizing and it was.  The photo is the other end of the day from the extra as we walked back from the restaurant, this was our view of the sunset.

Now blip and duolingo before we turn in for the night.