No wonder the guide books ignore Rochefort; on Sunday almost everything is closed. Everything but patisseries: opposite the hotel a long line extends out the bakery door and up the street. The line moves slowly. I picture each patron going crazy over the selection of assorted fresh fruit tarts, layered and solid chocolate slabs, imaginatively designed marzipan, dense macaroons, delicate florentines, fluffy mousse and liquor-soaked whipped cream-lathered gateaux. Even the driver of the parked truck, marked "Fast Food", is inside the patisserie. Monsieur LaLanne, our host at the hotel, tells us that on Sunday it’s the custom in Rochefort to visit family and friends with an assortment of pastries, a bouquet of flowers, or both. The 3 foot-long bread everyone carries is strictly for home consumption. We join the line and buy a baguette to take to the beach.

In Fouras, when the tide is out it’s far out, and the wide stretch of sand hosts sun-tanning women often topless and children sometimes topless and bottomless. Everyone puts on boots, however, to dig in the peninsula’s oyster beds for those delicate pale-green mollusks prized in the local cuisine. According to a tourist handout, the old fort at the far end of Fouras is loaded with history; Napoleon may have slept here. But one night in unpretentious Rochefort and we’re already backing off from history. Not that Rochefort doesn’t have its historical attractions, like the Royal Ropeworks. "The longest building in France," LaLanne tells us. "There one can learn something everything about rope-making." An opportunity missed.