La Rochelle

My holiday started in the seaside town of la Rochelle. I flew into the airport and my sister drove down to meet me. We spent two days in a hotel in the middle of the town before going back to her house. La Rochelle is a beautiful, medieval town with the original harbour and many old and fascinating buildings. We were lucky; we had two days of glorious sunshine followed by the most spectacular sunset imaginable.
For any one who is interested; 
A potted history of this beautiful little town. 
 
La Rochelle was founded during the 10th century, by the 12th century it had became an important harbour and trading port. In 1130 La Rochelle became a free port, which was unusual for the time. This gave it the right to establish itself as a commune.

 Fifty years later Eleanor of Aquitaine upheld the communal charter which had been granted by her father, Guillaume X, Duke of Aquitaine, to La Rochelle establishing its rights as a commune. Because of its status as a ‘commune’, La Rochell was the first place in France to appoint its own city mayor.

Under the communal charter the city obtained many privileges; it had the right to mint its own coins and the right to operate businesses free from royal taxes, this encouraged entrepreneurs who became prosperous and the bourgeoisie classes grew and flourished.. Eleanor married Henry Plantagenet in 1152, and in 1154 he became king of England (as Henry II) and this placed La Rochelle under Plantagenet (English)  rule. The town returned to French rule when it was captured by Louis VIII in the 1224 during the Siege of La Rochelle. 

As the town grew it became a centre for maritime commerce and trade, especially with England, the Netherlands and Spain. The Knights Templar traditionally held a strong presence in La Rochelle, this  started before the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine. She exempted them from duties and even gave them mills in her 1139 Charter.  

La Rochelle was strategically important to the Templars because it was their largest base on the Atlantic Ocean and where they stationed their main fleet. This enabled them to  act as intermediaries in trade between England and the Mediterranean. The Templars played such a large part in the history of La Rochelle there are even legends linking the holy blood and the  Holy Grail to the ancient town. 

During the 12 century La Rochell was embroiled in the 100 year war and later found itself in the midst of The French Wars of Religion (1562–98).  

La Rochelles somewhat turbulent past culminated in its active participation in the slave trade. The slave trade of La Rochelle ended with the onset of the French Revolution and the war with England in the 1790s, the last La Rochelle slave ship, the Saint-Jacques was captured in 1793 in the Gulf of Guinea. In February 1794, the National Assembly (post French revolution) legislated the Universal Emancipation decree, which effectively freed all colonial slaves. The wall with the grafiti caught my eye, it was such a contrast to the rest of the town.  With such a history, streatching back so far, its no surprise that la Rochelle is so interesting and full of ancient buildings. The ancient town was never swept away in huge developments, it was never disposed of  and replaced with shiny new buildings, it was simply adapted to meet the changing needs of the modern age. 

The streets are still narrow, the buildings are still old and much of the old town still operates under the ancient arches which were originally built as flood defenses. 

These are the first photos I took in France and some of them could be better. I had not learnt about all the different settings and I think some of these were taken on the wrong setting. 

I just had to take a photo of all the delicious looking specialty pastries in the window of one shop. I also took a photo of a shop called ‘Blanc du Nil’, this shop fascinated me, it was a clothes shop but EVERYTHING, and I do mean EVERYTHING, was pure white. 

There was not so much as a coloured trim any where to be seen. The clothes looked lovely, typically French, and very beautiful, but I have never seen a shop selling only white clothes before.  Our two days were topped off with a perfect sunset that

turned the water red and the sky yellow.

The last picture is of a painting, was painted in 1762 by Joseph Varnet and shows a sunset over the harbour. I was struck by how little things have changed, even the sunsets remain the same.