Camping La Pignade, Ronce Le Bains, 31st August 1987
We crossed the La Seudre on the toll bridge to Marennes, close to where the river flows into the Atlantic at the end of its 68km journey from Saint-Genis-de-Saintonge. The town sat in a spare, flat landscape of dykes and lagoons that seemed little removed from the sea – this coastal area is famed for its oyster farms. The flatness and the 85 metre high tower of the Saint-Pierre-de-Sales played off each other, emphasising the contrast. The tower is a landmark and a beacon: in earlier days lights were lit on a platform 55 metres up to guide ships around the delicate passage of Maumusson between Oléron and the mainland and also to signal the entrance to La Seudre.
Twenty kilometers north, Rochefort was a dry white town with a sleepy air induced by the sun and Monday closing. An important French naval base from 1665 to 1926, it is also an example of 17th-century ville nouvelle built as a result of a royal decree – royal power in the region could not depend on rebellious Protestant La Rochelle. The Rochefort-Martrou Transporter Bridge seemed to be striding over the flat lands on fragile, angular lattice legs. It was constructed in 1898-1900 to connect Rochefort and Échillais without hindering the navigation of shipping serving the ports of Rochefort and Tonnay-Charente.
La Rochelle was beautiful, a picturesque combination of ancient buildings and a harbour with a fleet of elegant yachts, cargo ships and fishing boats bringing in oysters, flatfish, rays and crabs. The church of Saint Sauveur was dominant and strange (it has three naves) and had been rebuilt four times between 1152 and 1718, the victim of fire and religious conflict in this febrile region. Because of its western location, La Rochelle’s Protestant mercantile class prospered in the 16th Century through fishing in the Atlantic and trading with the Americas, until the Wars of Religion (1562 to 1598) devastated the city. The Lantern Tower is one of the three medieval historic towers that guarded the port at Aunis and served as a Lighthouse. It was also a prison and the walls still bare drawings of ships scratched to relieve the tedium of incarceration. The pedestrian streets were charming and peaceful, though not without a share of beggars and drunks –- tourists are always easy targets.