Having read up on Pornichet, Bruce was eager to get to 'La Baule' beach with the promise of 'topless bathing as far as the eye can see' only to be disappointed. Either times have changed or it was too cold for the girls!

The beach expands along the bay and is kept beautifully clean being constantly raked and brushed by a large tractor. Pornichet is a proper seaside resort, with apartment blocks and hotels all along the bay and loads of entertainment for kids and adults alike as we watched the 'les grande sculptures' at work, amazed that the wind hadn't destroyed the progress made so far.



We walked along some of the side streets, passing the town hall with immaculate flower gardens, and the village atmosphere near the railway station. We visited a fantastic market which started in a conical roofed building named 'Les Halles' containing fresh fruit and veg, meats, cheeses and fish stalls which continued outside surrounding the building. Roads were closed to accommodate the market and additional seating was laid on in front of all the bars and restaurants. It was really crowded and a bit chaotic, but definitely the place to be.

Walking back to the Marina we couldn't help but notice the amount of people fishing from the bridge. So we stopped to watch - large nets were being lowered into the sea below and immediately followed with a scattering of fish food directly above the net. After a few minutes the nets were raised and the captured fish collected, then the whole process repeated again. We can only assume that the fish they were catching were small sardines as people had buckets full of them.



Whilst we are glad that we visited Pornichet, it wasn't really our cup of tea probably because it was too big and commercial and better suited to young families.