We will be arriving in La Rochelle on May10 and staying for 3 night at the Masq Hotel. During this time (for 1 or 2 days at least) there will be cliff diving contests off the towers at the vieux port, sponsored by Red Bull.

I think this will be fun to watch, but I'd hate to be in a town that is overrun with people. We had no idea this event was taking place while we will be there. We've booked our other hotels already and La Rochelle fits nicely into our itinerary which is:

Fly into Madrid
2 days Segovia
5 days San Sebatian
5 days St. Jean de Luz
3 days La Rochelle
3 days Tremolat
3 days Toulouse

I guess we could pick another area to visit if we had to.

My questions:

Has anyone been there for this event and is the town way too crowded?
Has anyone stayed at the Masq Hotel and can tell me what they thought.
Any restaurant recommendations?

Thanks for any information you can give me.
Barb

I've never been there during the event, but 40,000 people showed up to watch it last year, and the town's not that big, so I imagine it will be very crowded.

Thanks, StCirq. Yes, that's a lot of people. Do you know over how many days the event takes place?

We will be coming from St. Jean de Luz and will be heading to Tremolat after La Rochelle. Could you suggest an interesting 3 day stop to visit instead of La Rochelle?

Why not head over to the Ile de Ré instead? It's a lovely place to visit and it's just off the coast near La Rochelle. Y

Sorry, hit post too soon. You could even visit La Rochelle on the way there or back.