Moved over to blog.kevindixie.com

I moved this blog over to blog.kevindixie.com a while back, feel free to keep up-to-date over there, anything La Rochelle specific will be on here.

Carnaval La Rochelle

Another year, this time I tried the new lens..

La Rochelle - Ryanair - - Have they scrapped flights?

UPDATE 14 Sept 09: They have scrapped flights, see my post about Ryanair stopping flights to La Rochelle

Just looking at various sites and could find nothing to explain the sudden apparent loss of Saturday, Tuesday and Thursday flights from La Rochelle to London Stansted. This post is purely to see if anyone has any inside knowledge and indeed want to start a conversation as to why Ryanair appear to have stopped flying from London to La Rochelle on Saturdays.

It must be a marketing ploy, I can think of no other reason..

BTW I stopped writing regualar posts on this La Rochelle blog as I felt I covered most subjects but if anyone wishes, it can continue.

UPDATE 14 Sept 09: They have scrapped flights, see my post about Ryanair stopping flights to La Rochelle

Fete de la Musique - La Rochelle

Today, Saturday the 21st June is a great day to be in La Rochelle. It is the annual "fete de la musique". What does this mean?

Every year on solstice day France celebrates with a huge music festival. Now, dear reader, when I say huge, I mean massive. Last year there were around 3-500,000 watching the bands in the streets. La Rochelle is a reasonable large city and just about every square will have a band in it, starting from 10am today lasting until 2am in the morning. Click here to open the pdf agenda.

Pictures and videos will follow tomorrow.

Rock on!

Photo's of the Cavalcade in La Rochelle

So here are some snaps of what went on this weekend in La Rochelle.

Tip for the organiser of the carnival, please do try to get the "floats" and bands/people walking closer to one and other, waiting 20 mins between some "floats" was too much for the average viewer. It made the entire parade take over two hours to pass us and must have been an age for those waiting at the old Port in the centre of La Rochelle!

All in all a reasonable day out, just could be more local businesses involved and a better website promoting it, maybe they could ask me next year to help?!














Waiting for the parade to catch up!

Cavalcade of La Rochelle

If you are lucky enough to be in La Rochelle this weekend, you are in for a big party.

The Cavalcade of La Rochelle is a weekend of floats, bands, street animation and hundreds of thousands of people celebrating the start of summer. It starts on Saturday 24th May and finished on Sunday. Last year, we witnessed the float parade at around midnight in the old port, probably having a beer or two in Fitzpatrick's Irish Bar (my local pub!).

It passes right through the City of La Rochelle and should not be missed, if you are around, leave a comment we could have a beer or two ;-) If you have young children, be sure to go on the Sunday as Saturday is a late one, finishes around 1-2am!

La Rochelle Gites for hire

Friends of ours own some amazing gites in La Rochelle and have finally set up a blog and website to promote them a bit. They have some free slots available this summer so take a look by clicking here!

La Rochelle has hundreds and possibly thousands of holiday homes available to rent and this year with 11 direct flights from the UK and Ireland, La Rochelle is set to be busier then ever. If you wanted to have a relaxing week or two surrounded by sunflower fields, our pals gites are perfect (this year in any case, the crops can be rotated!).

What is a gite? It is basically a self-contained house or apartment (generally house with large grounds) with every utensil required to spend a few weeks living like a local or relaxing in peace. In the USA I guess these are called Villas or Condo's to rent?

Why am I promoting their website and blog? They are friends, I want their website and business to succeed and more importantly, would love to meet more fuelmyblog people in La Rochelle this summer. Am also thinking of hosting a blog meet up on the beach, with free wine and wifi organised and we could even live blog it! Take a look and if interested, drop them a line. If you fancy meeting up in La Rochelle, drop me one ;-)

Quebec / La Rochelle 400 years this week

In 1608, Samuel de Champlain, father of the "Nouvelle France", left La Rochelle, crossed the Atlantic Ocean and founded the city of Quebec (Québec) in Canada. This week saw the 400 year anniversary party in La Rochelle. On Thursday, the City of La Rochelle became very busy!
Take a look at the photo's and video's below, you may even find some young ladies strolling around (almost) naked covered in paint!!


The first video is the La Rochelle fishing students making nets.




Below is the Belem which was nearly as tall as the famous towers in the Old Port of La Rochelle.



Did I mention the ladies almost naked?

In La Rochelle's St Jean D'Arc Carpark, was a gourmet festival..Squid (Seches) and various other dishes were available for almost nothing..

Let the jousting begin!







Who are "these" girls?


And Finally, the Belem entered the Old Port in La Rochelle..


So we ate, drank and really had a great day watching the events unfold. Bravo La Rochelle, Congrat's Quebec.

A European Joke!

I haven't posted here for a while, as I am now blogging the serious stuff over here and here, so I thought why not simply post things that amuse me on here? Every now and then some funny things will appear! This was in an email from a family member this morning (I fly this company almost weekly and I actually love their service but..):-

A man was sitting in the bar at Heathrow Terminal 3 and noticed a really
beautiful woman sitting next to him.

He thought to himself . 'Wow, she's so gorgeous she must be an air
hostess. I wonder which airline she works for?'

Hoping to pick her up, he leaned towards her and uttered the Delta
Airline slogan. 'Love to fly and it shows?'

She gave him a blank,confused stare and he immediately thought to himself .
'Well, she obviously doesn't work for Delta.'

A moment later,another slogan popped into his head. So he leaned towards
her again and said, 'Something special in the air ..?'

She gave him the same confused look. He mentally kicked himself and
scratched Singapore Airlines off his list.

He thought 'Perhaps she works for Thai Airways ...' and said,'Smooth as silk?'

This time,the woman turned on him and said, 'What the f**k do you want?'

The man smiled, slumped back in his chair and said . 'Ahhhhh, Ryanair!'

Banned because I live in France!

A website just shut its door on France, 1938media.com. Why? See here.
(Of course I can't see it so it may be a dud link!) I can however see Techcrunch so the link to the story is here.

Now Loic Le Meur has apologised here, so can you take the country ban off please Loren?

I mean, I am English so maybe just allow my IP?!!

Here is the screen shot of 1938media site right now for me.


My take on the whole episode is that Seesmic is a great idea and is in pre-alpha which means it is there to be taken shots at but is also saying we are a work in progress so be patient. I have had similar attacks about my site.
This is what trying to create a difference brings you, normally elation and satisfaction, sometimes pain. Loic took the bait, why?, because he probably lives and breathes seesmic and is running at 200%, with not enough sleep and when you get a horrible critique under emotional pressure and tiredness, that is what happens.

A bad review feels like someone has attacked your child (I am qualified to say that!). Running a start up is hard, harder than anyone who hasn't tried will ever know especially when online 24 hours a day 7 days a week. But it is all great fun at the same time :-)

A day in Angouleme

Last weekend we visited the beautiful city of Angouleme, it is about 1hr45mins drive from La Rochelle.

We went to the Gastronomades. This is a great example of how things differ here in France. Everywhere was free to enter and all about food!

We watched a really classy demonstration of how to produce spectacular Japanese food, by the highest rated Japanese chef in France. He prepared this freshly under the drooling gazes of 300 people. My son won the opportunity to sample the most expensive dish on any menu by winning with a raffle ticket given out on entering the hall, Sylvie also won with the next drawn ticket, you couldn't make it up!

So this post is more about photo's than words:-


This was a chocolatier demonstrating how to carve chocolate!

Marathon of La Rochelle 2007

Today means another early start for me. The La Rochelle Marathon, 3rd largest in France, is this morning.

In 2006 the weather was beautiful, large crowds and bands on every street corner, this year the weather is a bit grim, raining and cool, it probably suits the professionals. Will it suit the crowds?

I shall be staying at home for the first hour and half because it passes by my front door and well, I can drink my black coffee and watch in comfort. You can watch the streaming video here, I will post up photos later:-

marathon live video
Finishing between the towers

Every finisher gets their own pack of oysters!