French Heaven: A Weekend on the Ile de Re
This is the France of your dreams. The one you imagined had long gone, drowned under a sea of stressful travel, indifferent food, and ripoff hotels.
Ile de Re is a small, easy to get to island on the Atlantic coast off La Rochelle, a paradise of easy cycling and walking, picture-postcard villages and squat cottages in farmland edged by miles-long deserted golden sandy beaches. The New York Times recently called it the epitome of “douce France”, all that is quiet, calm and welcoming. It’s the kind of place where an oysterman asks which half dozen you’d like to try next, and you just point into the water and say “Those ones. S'il vous plait.”
When to go: Don’t even think about August when the island population swells from 18,000 to upwards of 120,000. Since the construction of the mainland bridge from La Rochelle, all the French who couldn’t fit along the Cote d’Azur in August like to drive here and sit in traffic jams for hours on end.
But for the other eleven months of the year, take your pick.
Spring and early summer is bright and breezy, ideal for families who want a beach and good food – plus the island roads are well stocked with drive-by stalls offering local produce. Autumn has warm sunshine, festivals and quiet weekends with cheap, cheap airfares for romantic couples wanting a short, easy break. Winter beckons too, as a real get-away-from-it-all island hideaway.
How To Get There: It is an inescapable and obvious truism that in order to reach and enjoy peaceful holiday havens we have to endure the actual process of getting there. Travel was once an exciting, freeing of the spirit, now too often it involves a dehumanizing process as you fight your way through the traffic, spend a small fortune on taxis/car parking/just getting to the airport, and then suffering the security procedures and shopping malls that characterize today’s air travel.
Flying to La Rochelle isn’t like that. Five airlines operate out of half a dozen or so smaller regional airports, so if you’re to the south or west of London then I would recommend Flybe out of Southampton.
Parkway Station, at the airport, is just over an hour from Waterloo, and involves what appears to be a casual wander through a few doors before taking off. This is still a BAA airport, so there’s a shopping mall to negotiate, but mercifully it’s a small one. Fares vary wildly, £100 return say, but surf the websites for deals.
Flybe’s flight is only an hour and La Rochelle airport is little more than a cluster of small single storey buildings. No shopping mall. Just a café.
The toll bridge to Ile de Re is at the airport and ten minutes after landing you can be crossing it. Bliss.
OK. WE’RE HERE.
The island has ten villages, all vaguely similar on the surface, white cottages with green shutters, but itching to show off their differences underneath. Fortresses, churches, museums; restaurants new and old; fishing trips, cycling and wandering. There’s as much, or as little to do as you might want.
And yes, those donkeys in the field are wearing pyjama trousers. The island’s contribution to gourmandizing is fleur de sel, a fragrant sea salt now hauled from the marshes by tractor. Retired donkeys make for a more static target to biting insects, so local women took pity, and now knock up brightly coloured culottes. Two pairs each.
The island capital is St Martin-de-Re, a former fortress with ramparts and battlements aplenty, showing off French military history and the principal reason this small gem has just become a UNESCO World Heritage site. The focus of attention is the harbour, a mix of pleasure craft and fishing boats which land their catch onto the quayside, directly in front of the cafes that're going to cook it for you.
STAY WHERE?
Of the island’s 34 hotels, the most spectacular renovation has been at the small L’Hotel de Toiras, a former shipowner’s residence on the St Martin quayside. Distinguished by a 17th century tower on the outside, and sumptuous décor inside, it’s a four star Relais & Chateaux property. So you can expect a level of comfort above the norm, and relaxation to recreate a “home from home”.
The door opens straight from the quayside into an informal lobby of overstuffed sofas plus tasteful tables and chairs arranged for quiet breakfasts, reading, and chat. The staff are pleasant, helpful and discreet. They want you to come back because you’ve chilled out and enjoyed the place, so the emphasis is on soothing charm.
The redesign puts history to the fore: deep blue papers, bottle green fabrics and wallhangings have been chosen with an eye for beauty to mix and set the tone for bold splashes, big patterns, with antiques and furnishings that take centre stage. The George Washington suite, for example, named in honour of a forebear who left the island for America, has shuttered windows overlooking the harbour’s busy tableau of boats and activity, but framed with rich heavy brocades to be drawn shut when the bustle isn’t required, much like any volume control.
It’s fully accessible to the less able with a stand-alone bath, wet room shower, and a double bed so comfortable it was described to me as “marshmallow land”. Sitting reading the suite’s library of coffee table art books is an innocent, tranquil pleasure – made guilty with a glass of pineau des charentes just two hours after leaving England.
REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL, 1,2,3…
(1) This is bike heaven, the island’s as flat as a crepe, and everyone effortlessly cycles everywhere. An extensive railway network, torn up before the Second World War, has been preserved for cyclists which, adding to the roads and dedicated tracks, creates 100km of routes, crisscrossing the entire island. On top of that (literally) are the fortress ramparts encasing villages like St Martin and La Flotte with paths made for pleasant coastal excursions. Bikes can be hired anywhere.
In St Martin try la Maison des Velocipedes (+33 6 84 32 18 92) which was astoundingly cheap - moreso after the owner had brought us drinks later in his favourite bar.
(2) Pineau des Charentes, a local tipple barely known in the rest of France let alone the UK, is served everywhere as an aperitif, a chilled refresher, or even after dinner. It’s an enticing, beguiling little drink, sharp and flowery, the colour varying from a golden white to darker hues. It’s made from grape must and cognac, so it’s as strong as any fortified wine, but sweetly pleasant and distinctly moreish with ice.
It’s also put to tongue-tickling good use in the local jams and preservatives made by Francoise Heraudeau in the tiny village of Ars-en-Re, whose kitchen table cottage industry, Confitures du Clocher, now extends to two dozen varieties, several of which are fortified by Pineau. Delish.
(3) Good health extends beyond the odd morning constitutional, and the French like nothing better than the cure/preventative properties of sea water, collectively gathered under Thalassotherapy. There are three centres on Ile de Re which offer an array of packages covering hydrotherapy to massage, beauty treatments to wraps. At La Flotte, the centre is attached to the island’s other four star hotel, Le Richelieu,
LET’S DO LUNCH
Cheap
The virtually deserted coastal cycle path from St Martin to La Flotte is a winding seaside meander dotted with anglers, yachties, and fishermen. The oystermen, whose farms are offshore, have their boatyards here and the more enterprising, have set up little rustic tables and chairs in among the boats, the nets and the obligatory dog, selling direct to you at five euros for half a dozen including a glass of chilled white vin de pays, as well as prawns, mussels, and lobster. But beware: it can turn into a much longer pitstop than you had planned!
Not so cheap
In St Martin, the funky café 4bis is a brightly lit dayglo coffee house with Wifi and a free internet terminal to check your emails (the reception on the island for mobiles is very patchy). The lunchtime special involves choosing your own pasta and sauce from a selection of nine, for €8.
Not cheap but worthwhile
Raving about mussels may seem a mite OTT, but that’s exactly what we did in Serghi, a jaunty, harbourside bistro in St Martin where the daily specials have more than a whiff of the ocean. A casual, good looking staff served up a marmite de moules facon, about a kilo of juicy young mussels in a creamily aromatic broth – spiked just with a soupcon of curry – which outshone the alternative excellent lunchtime combo – Soupe glacee de tomates au basilic, tartare de saumon aux fines herbes, and brochette de sardines Bretanne a la Plancha – all three plus salad for €14 and all bursting with freshness and flavour, the kind of food you really do want on the quayside. A local wine, an Ile de Re rose des dunes was fresh and tart, not one to travel I suspect, but fine on the day.
WHAT’S YOURS?
Bars and cafes abound, the annual tourist influx sees to that but in St Martin, there are two worth seeking out where you will easily fall in to conversation with the people who actually live there.
Le Cervane, a Spanish Tapas Bar is a lively, bright place where anything goes, the general flamboyance emanating from the pair who run it with a degree of aplomb, not to mention the flow of wines and cocktails.
On the harbour Le Bistrot du Marin doubles as restaurant and late night hangout for a younger crowd who like nothing better than their Sambuccas aflame.
Neither is overpowering, but provide a little spike of late night activity in an otherwise sleepy port.
DINNER IS SERVED
At L’Hotel Toiras, the home from home idea extends to dinner where the chef will serve up a couple of specials, mostly local fish landed outside the front door, and supplement it with a couple of staples. A kind of professional home cooking that works well. On our ‘night in’ we were offered a home-made minestrone with langoustines, the competition being foie gras or oysters. The main courses were Sea Bass and Dorade (cooked en pappilotte), faced off by entrecote steak.
The room itself can only be described as sumptuous, with rich, heavy fabrics, luxurious linens and crisp napery, the carte a short, well chosen list of top end crus. The organic Vin de Pays at €60 is a Loire, Ampelidae by Frederick Brochet. “Le S” is a white sauvignon blanc, sharp, with direct greengage, and the red a cherry-bursting pinot noir, both eminently drinkable.
DRIVE BY
For an hour or so…
A trip around the island by any means, bike, bus or car, will eventually bring you into contact with the two principal island landmarks.
Le Phare des Baleines is one of the oldest, tallest lighthouses in France, 57 metres high (257 steps up, 257 steps back down) and dating back to the 17th century.
At Ars-en-Re, the two tone church steeple is a useful landmark for all to see. A journey to both of these will take you through salt marshes, cornfields, tiny villages and deserted sandy beaches.
For the day…
Fans of the TV show “Fort Boyard” can visit the real thing, just a short boat ride away. Built in the Napoleonic era as a defence against the British, it was a white elephant from the outset, having been overtaken by cannon firing technology during its long, arduous construction. It’s only ever been successful as a location for film and TV.
Overnight…
If you can drag yourself away from the calm of Ile de Re, La Rochelle beckons back on the mainland. Dating back to the 10th century with a colourful history, the main attraction is the ‘Vieux Port’, the old harbour, replete with gourmet fishy delights.
There’s also a massive undersea housing for German U-Boats, built during the Second World War not in use today, except for U-Boat scenes in movies like Das Boot and Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Useful links
Flybe.com
Added 2008/09/09 @ 22:49:07
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