Maydaisy

Hi Everyone,
We moved to a town close to La Rochelle last year. My husband is French and I am English. I would like to know if there are any expat groups or native french groups where I can start to make friends. I have tried to find something and there seems to be nothing in La Rochelle. I am learning French and want to become fluent.

dmu

Hi, and welcome to the forum!
Your Mairie (and that of La Rochelle) will have a list of Clubs and Associations which you could join, and make friends with like interests. In my Commune of a little more than 1000 souls, there are a dozen arty and sporty Associations, and my nearest town of not quite 6000 inhabitants has many more, so La Rochelle should be rich in opportunities!
Have you got children? Another way of making friends is at the school gates and/or your children's friends' parents when the children socialise....
HTH

Maydaisy

Hi,
Thank you for the information. We actually live in a small town just inland from La Rochelle. I will take your advice and visit the Mairie.

Maydaisy

I forgot to mention. Children all grown up.

EuroTrash

When you say there is nothing in La Rochelle, there were 900 associations before Covid struck and surely most of them must have survived?
https://www.larochelle.fr/fileadmin/...9-2020-web.pdf

Maydaisy

Hello. Thank you for this. I have tried googling everything but didn't find this. I will study it. Thank you.

EuroTrash

Hope you find something of interest!
You could join the mannequin group and learn how to pirouette slinkily along the catwalk LOL, that's the one that leapt out at me. Though I'm not sure how thrilled they would be if an old elephant like me wanted to join.
(I'm saying that, for all I know you might be a former model and that would be the last association you wanted to join...)

Maydaisy

Now that made me laugh. In my youth possibly!!

G-J-B

My wife started doing terra aventura not so long ago (got me roped in), which is located all over Nouvelle Aquaintaine, so covers your area too. If you like walking, learning about places (history and nature) and doing quizzes to ultimately find a secret cache, it's a nice way to see places you might not normally visit. As it seems quite popular (it's been around at least 10 years), you often bump into people on the walks and it can be quite sociable. The wife also chats with people in the TA forums, and they meet up every so often - she's making a lot of friendships this way. Just thought I'd throw it out there, in case it's something of interest to you and your husband.

Maydaisy

Oh definitely something we would be interested in. If my arthritic knees manage to cope 😁

Maydaisy

Oh definitely something we would be interested in. If my arthritic knees manage to cope 😁

G-J-B

Maydaisy, there's quite a few around you - they tell you how long they are, and how difficult (generally in terms of terrain - if they're hilly etc). There are many short ones that can be done in an hour or two hours, and if it's close by you don't have to complete it in one go. We found it a really nice way to explore the region around us - discovered many gems we would have simply driven past or never visited, and learned some interesting facts, as most of these walks are created by locals in correlation with the tourist information. And it's all free of course.
You just need the ap on your phone with gps enabled, and follow the arrows to get to the areas with questions and local facts. If you manage to get the answers correct, at the end your phone will show you where the cache is hidden and you can walk there, find a QR code to scan, and then it registers your 'win'. Some people hide badges with their team names on to swap with others, and then let them know on the facebook forums, that they've been found. Many teams travel the whole region to do them. It's a nice way to interact.

Maydaisy

Hi,
So do you meet people in person or is it all virtual?

G-J-B

There's different groups on FaceBook for Terra Aventura - my wife joined ZenZen. They share photographs, or badge finds etc there, and often people who live in a similar area meet up every now and then. Quite a few people travel the region and end up staying overnight with another family they've never met in person before, so they can do more of the walks in that area. You can socially engage to whatever level suits you really.

Maydaisy

Sounds great. I am also going to contact the commune Mairee and see if I can do something in the town. The town is so pretty but needs some tlc in the common parts. It could be beautiful. I don't know where you are from but if our town was in the UK it would be a treasure. So many pretty places in France.