Day 23 – Le Frandiere to Noirmoutier le L’ile (click link for route)

Thursday May 26, 2011

We packed up our stuff and headed further up the island to look around. It was cold, windy and threatened to rain all day. I didn’t think too much of the island – but I guess the weather had a bit to do with that.

Around 4.30pm a big black cloud came across, it got really cold and it started to spit with rain. We headed for the first hotel we could find.It was a very basic hotel and the room was a bit grotty – but it passed the sniff test. I don’t mind roughing it a bit if I have to – but draw the line at a smelly hotel.

We checked in, and when I opened the door to the toilet – it had a strong smell of man wee. You know that disgusting smell you get in toilets that men use? Not that I make a habit of using mens toilets – but the occasional time you have to use the mens loos at a night club ‘cos the queues are too long for the ladies. Service station toilets also have that smell. Also if you stand too close to any wall in France you will also get that smell as french guys will wee anywhere. I can always tell when men are sharing the campground toilets.

Anyway – I just pretended I was backpacking, put up with the smell and we headed out for dinner. We had a wonderful dinner in a cosy restaurant. It is common to have a fixed price menu here so we went for that. We both had smoked salmon for starters. Mike had steak and I had risotto for main. For desert we got a selection of mini deserts. It cost more than our hotel room but we didn’t care – it was delicious.