Kilburnlad

In 2018 I attended a French course at the summer school run by the U3A . While there I discovered that our tutor, Louisette, ran a course in France, at Les sables d'Olonne, in the Vendée. I expressed an interest and in 2019 Helen and I made our way there by car. We booked for three weeks, arriving a week before the course.

The course was run in the mornings over two weeks and that left the afternoons free for Helen and me, although we did on occasions go places with the group. Helen took lunches with us in the Roc Saint Jean restaurant that also hosted the course. It was superbly located on the rocky coastline. One couldn't have wished for a more desirable place to attend a French course.

Our apartment, in the Hôtel de l'Estran holiday complex, was across the road from a tourist attraction known as Le Puits d'Enfer (the wells/shafts of Hell), deep fissures in the rocks that boiled with water and foam when the sea was rough.

Walking into town the rocky coastline transformed into a magnificent beach that I imagine would be very busy in the peak French holiday season, but it was very lightly populated while we were there. We explored the town, the zoo that focusses on environmental protection and the aquarium, and enjoyed the shops and restaurants.

We had a day trip to the Île de Ré. This didn't leave us a lot of time to explore and we spent most of the time in the main town, Saint Martins, where we had a very enjoyable lunch.

We also went to the floral gardens of the Court d'Aron, at Saint-Cyr-en-Talmondais, a quite magnificent place to spend a few hours.