On the road to La Rochelle

On our bus trip we learned a bit about the French Health System, cost of which is 10% of GDP. Almost 100% of the cost of health care is free for those living in or working in France (All hospital stays and drugs). An exception is a doctor visit which cost 23 Euro, 70% is reimbursed and you can go to the doctor as often as you like. There are 23,000 general practice doctors in France and today's controversy is over the very low cost of a doctor's visit. While the doctors education is paid for, they still have to pay for room and board for the 4-12 years they will spend learning to be a doctor. 

Deux Chaveau

We stopped for coffee in Richelieu, named for the Archbishop and one of the few fortified towns built in that era. It was meant to be an ideal town for the 17th century. The moat is now filled with gardens for the nearby houses. As we continued on we stopped for lunch in the country at the La Repartie. This family restaurant is on its third generation. We had the local specialty as our starter, a vegetable square covered with goat cheese. What I found intriguing were the Deux Chaveau (two steam horses) that were parked there, classic and modified. I remember riding around in this bucket called a 'car' when I was an exchange student in France,

45 years ago.

Old Cognac Still

Our next stop was the Normandin-Mercier cognac distillery. Cognac is distilled from white grape wine (no more than 6 months old) from the Cognac region of France. It is distilled for 12 hours twice, resulting in a distillation of 72% alcohol. Then stored in casks for at least 2 years to be called Cognac. After the first two years, most cognac is put in a 2 year to 18 year old cask for many more years. Cognac is most often mixed with distilled water to reach an alcohol content around 40% (since it would take 50 years of storage to get to that level naturally). The aging of the blend stops when it is bottled. Usually older and newer cognac is mixed to get a good tasting blend. Typically cognac is seven years, fifteen years, or even older. They had a cask that was started in 1893, over 120 years old. We met the owner, who is the fifth generation of this family business.We reached La Rochelle in the early evening and had dinner in a restaurant by the harbor.

Harbor of La Rochelle