Dordogne, La Rochelle, St. Emilion and Ile de Re

I've been twisting my way along hopping over to the Dardogne area and lovely Sarlat and Domme although I would rather go there when it isn't full season.  St. Emilion was just lovely.  All the wine Chateau's and cobblestone ways.
The port city of La Rochelle is just beautiful.  A very lively place with hundreds of restaurants and all of them buzzing.  France has so many recreation areas, green spaces, large parks, playground, bike paths and lovely ports all along this Atlantic coast.  The island of Ile de Re is just across a bridge from La Rochelle.  An expensive bridge as the toll is 16 euros while the Ile d'Oleron is free to enter but Ile de Re is so special.  All white washed houses with hollyhocks growing up in front of them and shutters of green or grey usually.  The whole island has all those hundreds of criss crossed bike paths so one just parks the car and goes everywhere on bikes to all the main littles towns on the island.  I'm based in the capital St Martin at the moment and there's a jazz festival on so there's free concerts nightly.  Skies are blue, there's oyster shacks along the bike paths, the sun is shining so I'm off to hop on the bike again.

Long lovely beaches

St Martin's Port

Lunch

BUZET SUR BAISE

I've found that the most peaceful, lovely places to camp and take a pause are close to a harbour on the river ways here.  So many people travel by boat here and many live on their boats or at least spend summers on them.  It is all very well arranged with a young man opening and closing the locks and there's lot's of facilities in port.  Many of them have a camping area for free or low cost so I came here for one night and have stayed for five.
Today I'll move a bit to the east to Sarlat and Bergerac before I go to Bordeaux and La Rochelle.