Ile de Ré by guest writer Fiona Quinn

Why I love Ile de Ré

The small island of Ile de Ré on the French Atlantic coast, was on my wish list since I was at school. I read in my French textbook about one of the characters going there on holiday and that was it.

The island is in the Charente-Maritime department, part of Nouvelle Aquitaine. My mum moved to the département of Charente in 2004, then part of the Poitou-Charentes region and since then I’ve had the chance to visit and stay on the island numerous times.

Each time I visit, I discover a little something extra that makes me feel even more at home here.

Back when I was studying French at school, the island was more remote and only reached by ferry. Today it’s joined to the mainland at La Rochelle with a 2.9km toll bridge.

So who else loves Ile de Ré ?

Despite better access which helps attract a chic clientele of French politicians, film stars and well-heeled Parisians (some compare it to the Hamptons in Long Island), this isn’t a glitzy destination. It’s remained a peaceful island.

Dotted with tranquil villages and their quaint streets filled with pastel-shuttered homes, Ile de Ré sits in a rural landscape of big skies, salt marshes surrounded by dunes and sandy beaches, vineyards and pine forests deep with ferns.

Ile de Ré translates as the island of ferns. Once occupied by the Romans, the name is believed to come from the Latin word ratis meaning ferns.

There are 10 villages on the island to visit, each with a different character: Rivedoux-Plage, La Flotte, Sainte-Marie-de-Ré, Le Bois-Plage-en-Ré, La Couarde-sur-Mer, Ars-en-Ré, Saint-Clément-des-Baleines, Les Portes-en-Ré, Loix, and the main town of Saint-Martin-de-Ré.

Ile de Ré Tourist Office

How to get around

The picturesque French holiday spot encourages you to take a step away from the modern-day. Promoting the use of bikes, the island has created a 110-km network of cycle paths that crisscross this tiny (almost flat) landmass through open countryside and linking beaches to small towns.

Avoiding jumping on a bike in Ile de Ré is like never taking the tube in London – everyone’s doing it. The wide trails are suitable for the whole family who can pedal safely away from passing vehicles.

Almost every hotel, campsite and village has at least one place to hire bikes and helmets, with electric bikes, trailers for kids and dogs, and even tandems. Maps detailing all the routes are available everywhere, online or via the app.

Information on maps of cycling routes

From one end to the other, the island is 30km (19 miles) long and 5km (3 miles) wide. From Sablanceaux to Les Portes-en-Ré, the cycle route is 31.5km and takes an average cyclist a little more than 2 hours to ride.

Check out hiring a bicycle here

Don’t Miss

St-Martin-de-Ré

The former capital of the island is St-Martin-de-Ré, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here, the French clientele looks effortlessly chic in their linen shorts or floaty dresses on their sun-tanned bodies. The slogan on many a tote bag reflects the vibe: “Be Chic, Be Frenchy, Be Ré.”

The small harbour is surrounded by stonewashed restaurants and the town has become a stopping-off point for people flying out of La Rochelle airport (only a 30-minute drive away).

The lively harbour front is busy lunchtimes and evenings in summer, but out of season, you’ll find it easy to get a table. It’s the perfect place to sit quietly listening to the tinkle of sailing boat masts in the breeze with no sounds of passing traffic. Pedestrians walk or push their bikes through the streets, while drivers have to leave their vehicles at designated car parks, most of which are free for the first half-hour.

Locals like to start their meal with an aperitif of the Cognac-based Pineau des Charentes, followed by fresh oysters in season, moules marinèieres (mussels) or galettes (savoury buckwheat pancakes). For dessert, colourful La Martinière sells its own locally produced ice cream and has more than 60 flavours to choose from including salted caramel, mint choc chip and even Smurf.

Away from the harbour

Step away slightly from the harbourside, however, into one of the cobblestone back alleys, and you’ll get a chance to take photos of the renowned pastel-shuttered cottages and honeysuckle-lined lanes.

One tradition you can see in St-Martin is “Les ânes en culotte” or donkeys in pyjamas.

Donkeys were used throughout the island on farms and to carry salt from the marshes, which were notorious for the flies and mosquitoes that love the hairy animal’s juicy flesh.

The donkeys you see here wear striped cloth breeches to protect their legs and promote healing. Said to date from around 1860, the tradition started when a local woman used her husband’s shirt to dress the donkey’s wounds.

Today, children can take a short stroll on a donkey’s back around the Parc de la Barbette at the end of St-Martin harbour (from April to November weekends and holidays).

Ars-en-Ré church

At the far end of the island, the black-and-white steeple of the 15th-century Saint-Étienne church in the village square of Ars-en-Ré pierces a cloudless sky. It was used as a landmark for passing sailors.

Nowadays, visitors climb the belltower to make the most of the far-reaching views from the village across the saltmarshes.

The village is listed as one of the most beautiful in France and has a covered food market next to outdoor stalls selling clothing and trinkets.

La Flotte

Also on the list as one of the most beautiful villages in France, La Flotte is a miniature version of St-Martin.

With a few restaurants dotted around its small harbour, and a smattering of upmarket souvenirs, home decor and clothing shops, the village is most known for its medieval market selling locally grown fruit and veg from the cobblestoned courtyard.

Le Phare des Baleines lighthouse

The Victorian lighthouse sits on a windy outcrop on the far western end of the island overlooking its older sibling, the 17th-century Tour Vauban. At 57-m high, the energetic can climb to the top and overlook the nearby Plage des Conches and out across the Atlantic.

What to buy on Ile de Ré

I love shopping for unique items when I travel. Ile de Ré is famous for its local produce. The island’s fertile land and abundant sea mean that souvenirs from the island are plentiful.

One of its most renowned products, sea salt, is farmed here in the traditional way. Around 75 producers harvest the salt in the marshes using age-old techniques. The two types found here are gros sel (coarse salt) used in salt mills and cooking, and fleur de sel, a fine, slightly wet salt harvested by hand. It’s then added to caramel to produce vast quantities of salted caramel.

From the sea, oysters grown on the flatbeds are a local delicacy in season, while succulent mussels and sea urchins are also regional specialities.

On land, Ile de Ré has its own Cognac and the local aperitif, Pineau des Charentes, which come from grapes grown in the local vineyards.

Fruit and veg grown here include fresh strawberries, Ile de Ré new potatoes (similar to Jersey new potatoes and picked mid April), as well as asparagus, broad beans, cherries, tomatoes and peaches.

Fragrant smells in the shops and markets come from the scented soap made from donkey’s milk (lait d’ânesse). The highly prized milk calms the skin with its antibacterial and anti-inflammatory compounds.

Markets throughout the island are open every day in season, and each village has a market. The largest market at Le Bois-Plage has a huge fish market, and plenty of stalls selling clothes, souvenirs and trinkets.

Where to Stay on Ile de Ré

There’s a good choice of where to stay on the island. For accommodation on Ile de Ré click here.

How to get to Ile de Ré

By plane

There are numerous flights from UK airports to La Rochelle.

Once you arrive at the airport, you can either take the bus (see By bus below) or hire a car to your destination. The car hire building is a bit of a trek from the terminal, but once in the car, it’s a short 10-minute drive to the arc-shaped toll bridge to Ile de Ré (see By car below).

By train

Trains to La Rochelle connect from Bordeaux or Poitiers where you can join the TGV to Paris or Bordeaux. From the station, you can take the bus.

By car

Dover to Ile de Ré by car takes around 8 hrs 30 mins non-stop. It’s 787 kms (489 miles) and the fastest route has autoroute tolls. You go via Rouen and Le Mans then take the bridge to the island.

By bus

A bus picks up from the station – connecting with the Paris train – and airport to Ile de Ré every half hour to an hour with stops in nearly every village. You can buy a ticket on the bus for 5 euros for the day or 11 euros for the week (prices as of 2019).

The 3E Express bus runs from the station with limited stops; the 3A and 3B stop at both the station and airport and stops throughout the island. It takes about 30 minutes to Rivedoux-Plage and 2 hours to Portes-en-Ré, at the end of the island. It also connects with smaller shuttle buses on the island.

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About guest writer, Fiona Quinn

Fiona Quinn is a francophile travel writer and editor. She’s lived in France on and off during the past 30 years, including as a student in Paris, ski saisonnaire in Savoie and Haute Savoie, and a home-owner in sunflower-filled Charente. 
Check out her website.

The post Ile de Ré Island off the French Atlantic Coast appeared first on Mary Anne's France.

Location

Getting to the Iles de Lérins is easy, it’s just a wonderful 15 to 20 minute ferry ride. And they are fabulous, these secret islands off Cannes. So here are the reasons to go! The Iles de Lérins represent the Mediterranean in miniature. The two islands are so near to chic but consumerist Cannes, yet so far away in spirit. This is the quiet Côte d’Azur before the cinema crowd moved in. Even the breezy crossing is cool Cannes – without the bling or billionaire company. While away an afternoon over a waterside picnic, enjoy a wine tasting with monks, or walk past creeks to the next dip in turquoise waters.

Both islands are made for walking, picnicking, swimming, snoozing and dreaming. Come for spiritual sustenance on the monastic island of Saint Honorat. The Cistercian brothers will also tempt you with their Bordeaux-style wines, monastic liqueurs and Mediterranean feasts in their island restaurant.

Whether picnicking or praying, come to clear your head of Cannes. There’s only so much chic boutique-hopping most mortals can take. And the unworldly Brothers are better salesmen too.

The article The Iles de Lérins off Cannes tells you all you need to know about visiting the islands: walking, swimming, wine tasting and dining.

Getting to the Iles de Lérins

It’s a short crossing to the car-free islands from Cannes (15-20 minutes) and slightly longer from La Napoule. You can’t visit both islands on one boat trip: return to Cannes for the second cruise or, even better, do it another day, combined with the ravishing Corniche d’Or cruise of the Esterel Coast.

Getting to Ile Sainte Marguerite

Ile Sainte Marguerite: do the boat trip from Cannes, Mandelieu La Napoule, Golfe Juan, or Nice. Different companies offer different ports of departure. It’s quickest (and cheapest) from Cannes, followed by La Napoule, Golfe Juan and Nice. If cruising from Nice, treat it as a day trip to include the Corniche d’Or (Esterel Coast) as well. Try a variant on the basic cruise, combining Sainte Marguerite with a dinner cruise, regatta, fireworks display, catamaran cruise, or a sail along the Corniche d’Or.

Compagnie Riviera Lines
Quai Laubeuf
06400 Cannes
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 98 71 31
Website

Cannes to Sainte Marguerite
Daily departures from 7.30am to 7pm (the crossing takes 15 minutes). Return services run from 7.45am to 6pm.
Return tickets: 15€ adults, 13.50 € for students, 11 to 14 years and seniors, 9.50€ for children 5 to 10 years; free for children under 5.

Cannes to Sainte Marguerite and the Corniche d’Or, the ‘Golden Coast’
Return tickets 34€ adults, 22€ children 4 to 10 years. Under 4 years free
Departures: April 4 to September 9: Wednesday and Friday
July 1 to August 30: Monday, Wednesday and Friday
This glorious trip combines the island and one of the loveliest stretches of coast on the Riviera.

Golfe Juan to Sainte Marguerite and the Corniche d’Or, the ‘Golden Coast’
Return tickets from Golfe Juan: 39€ adult, 28€ children 4 to 10 years. Under 4 years free
Same departure dates and times as for Cannes to Sainte Marguerite

Trans Côte d’Azur
Quai Laubeuf
06400 Cannes
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 98 71 30
Website

Cannes to Sainte Marguerite
Daily departures from Cannes run from 7.30am to 6pm (the crossing takes 15 minutes). Return services run from 7.45am to 6pm.
Return tickets: 15€ adults, 13.50€ students, 11 to 14 years and seniors, 9.50€ for the under 10, free for children under 5. Book online for a discount on these prices (tickets are valid for one month).

Nice to Sainte Marguerite
Departures from Nice run from 9am for 10am-6pm on Sainte Marguerite returning to Nice at 7pm for this full day cruising.
Dates: May 21 to June 30 and September 3 to 29: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday
July 2 to September 1: daily except Mondays.
Return tickets: 41€ adults, 32€ children 4 to 10 years. Under 4 years free
Book online or by tel: (+33) (0)4 92 00 42 30

Nice to Sainte Marguerite and the Corniche d’Or
Departures from Nice 9am, return 7pm full day cruising to both islands
Dates: July 3 to August 30
Return tickets: 50€ adults, 40€ children 4 to 10 years. Under 4 years free
Book online or by tel: (+33) (0)4 92 00 42 30
Also cruises to see the fireworks off Cannes around Bastille Day, Monaco Grand Prix, Regattas and Flea Markets in St Tropez

Compagnie Maritime Napouloise
La Napoule Port
Tel: (+33) (0)6 25 33 40 84
Website

Mandelieu-La Napoule cruise to Sainte Marguerite
Departures: from 9.15am to 5.30pm returning from 9.40am to 6pm.
Dates: May 19 to September 22 daily except Mondays
Return ticket: 19€ adults, students, 11 to 14 years and seniors 17.50€. Under 4 years free

Mandelieu-La Napoule cruise to Sainte Marguerite and the Esteril
Catamaran cruise departures: May-September, Tuesday to Sunday from 10am to 5pm inc the chance to snorkel and bathe and meal on board.
Tickets: 108€ adults, 66€ children 4 to 10 years.
Half day afternoon tours are 3 to 5pm and cost 57€ adults and 47€ children 4 to 10 years.
See the website for more cruises.
They also depart from Théoule-sur-Mer.

Getting to Ile Saint Honorat

Ile Saint Honorat: there are fewer crossings to St Honorat as the resident monks value their privacy. Leave from Cannes on the island’s only ferry line, Planaria, and you can combine a visit with magnificent Corniche d’Or cruise.

Ile Saint Honorat
Planaria
Quai Laubeuf
06400 Cannes
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 98 71 38
Website

Cannes to St Honorat: (15 minute-crossing):
Daily departures hourly from 8am to 5pm. Return hourly from 8.30am to 5.30pm.
Return tickets booked online: 14.50€ adults; 14€ students, disabled and seniors; 13€ 13 to 18 year olds; 8.50€ 8 to 13 year olds, 5.50€ 4 to 8 year olds; children under 4 go free.
Check out the website for other possibilities like wine tastings.

Cannes – Office du Tourisme Palais des Festivals
1, Boulevard de la Croisette
06400 Cannes
Tel: (+) 33 (0)4 92 99 84 22
Website
Open daily, 9am-7pm, March-October
Cannes hotel booking on line

Walk to the hidden coves, go swimming off the rocks, take a picnic and chill out under the trees. Or see where The Man in the Iron Mask was incarcerated.
Check it all out here.

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Travel Guide to Nice
The Riviera – Great Gatsby Style
Essential Guide to Provence

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Two islands make up the Ile de Lérins off Cannes. Just a peaceful 15-minute boat ride from the glitzy resort, these islands are the place to unwind, enjoying a waterside picnic, swimming in hidden coves, wandering around the Abbey, and tasting monastic award-winning wines.

A little history

The islands have been occupied since Roman times but followed very different paths. While Saint Honorat has always been associated with peace and prayer, Sainte Marguerite has been more warlike.

In AD 410 St Honoratus landed on Saint Honorat, his private paradise, but word spread and soon the hermit had a successful monastery on his hands, including the future St Patrick as a disciple. By the fifth century, this was arguably the most illustrious monastery in Christendom. It eventually controlled abbeys and land stretching from the Cannes coast to the Loire Valley. A small community of Cistercian monks still runs the island.

Instead, the island of Sainte Marguerite chose war. In the 1630s, the island was occupied by the Spanish, who built a pentagonal fort on an ancient Roman site. Under French royal rule, the fort was finished and became a feared state prison, including for political prisoner and religious dissenters. The mysterious inmate known as ‘The Man in the Iron Mask’ was held there for 11 years from 1687 to 1698. The so-called Fort Royal is still formidable today.

Touring Ile Sainte Marguerite

The island of Sainte Marguerite is the closest, largest and lushest of the secret Iles de Lérins off Cannes. From the ferry, it’s a gentle five-mile circuit around the shore, but there are lots of short cuts back to the fort and the ferry landing stage. To get a sense of the island as a place of pillage and plunder, visit the Fort Royal first. For a picnic, choose one of the wilder creeks on the southern side of the island, along the Allée de Ceinture, or the lofty grounds of the Fort Royal, looking across the bay towards Cannes.

Fort Royal

From the pier, take a left towards the pentagonal Fort Royal, the island’s star attraction. This cliff-top stronghold and former prison overlooks Cannes and the coast, with romantic views from the ramparts. The Fort Royal was built by Cardinal Richelieu but remodelled by Vauban, the great military architect. During World War Two, the occupying Nazis added bunkers and a look-out tower.

The fort is most famous for being the prison of ‘the Man in the Iron Mask’. The mysterious masked captive was confined here for 11 years and might conceivably have been Louis XIV’s twin brother, or even a woman. His cell is oddly moving.

Behind the former prison is the Maritime Museum (Musée de la Mer) with a Roman boat and a collection of pottery recovered from ancient shipwrecks.

From here, if feeling lazy, take the Allée des Eucalyptus, where stately trees line the way to the wilder, southern shore, with its rocky coastline and sea breezes. Cars are banned so you should have the coves, trails and turquoise waters mostly to yourself, except in summer. The perfect micro climate means that the island is often balmy in April, even when clouds hang over the Cannes hills.

Instead, if feeling more energetic, retrace your steps from the fort to the pier and follow the coastal path in an anti-clockwise direction. Pass the island’s only proper beaches, between the pier and Pointe de Batéguier, to the Etang du Batéguier nature reserve. In spring and autumn this brackish lake is a welcome landing stage for migratory birds. Even outside these times you might spot herons, stern and wild duck, or a kestrel overhead. All proof that the island is attuned to birdsong not bling.

From here, follow the Chemin de Ceinture path, which hugs the waterfront and runs west to east the 3km length of the island. It takes you to the wilder waterfront, facing the contemplative monks, not consumerist Cannes. The dizzyingly natural scents evoke Corsica not Cannes. Breathe in the scented bush, a mix of eucalyptus and thyme, lentisk and lavender, honeysuckle and heather.In the secluded coves, it’s hard to believe that Cannes’ star-studded Croisette is just over a mile away.

For swimming, sensible sorts choose one of the island’s rare sandy beaches, facing Cannes, close to Chemin du Batéguier. Romantics and yachties prefer the wilder southern shore facing away from the city. Here, the coastline is riddled with tiny, crooked coves made for sunbathing and swimming. Edged by Aleppo pines and scorched brush, the creeks fill up with smug yachties in high summer.

Keep following the trail east, rounding the windswept Pointe de la Convention to reach the tamer northern shore. After a picnic or gourmet lunch, amble back to the jetty and chug home to Cannes. If rushing for a boat, cut across the forested interior via the tunnel-like paths.

Where to eat

Ponder a Mediterranean picnic of ham, cheese and olives picked up at Forville market in Cannes, before the cruise. Or try these places restaurants.

Visiting Ile Saint Honorat

Saint Honorat is tucked behind Sainte Marguerite, and easily overlooked. It’s not quite as accessible as its big sister – exactly as the monks like it. Even so, in August, the flotilla of moored yachts almost makes a bridge between the two islands. Sadly, you can’t hop across, but need to take the ferry from Cannes. It’s all part of preserving the monks’ peaceful way of life. This serene, mile-long island has been a place of prayer for over 1,500 years, bar the odd piratical invasion.

Monastic Life

The island is still a heady mix of scented paths, swaying umbrella pines and wafting monks. Around twenty Cistercian brothers share their retreat with the world. These black-and-white cassocked monks are among the holiest and happiest you’ll ever meet. As Brother Marie-Paques, the abbey spokesman says, “a community life means joy and inner peace.”

The community is contemplative and cloistered, as St Benedict envisioned. Their tenets are work, love, pray and self-sufficiency, an extension of the Benedictines’ devotion to “ora e labora” (`work and prayer’). It’s about simplicity, stripping life down to its essence, including communal prayers seven times a day. But these austere monks also observe the ancient Benedictine tradition of hospitality. You are welcome to join them for Sunday Mass, Vespers or even a spiritual retreat.

Take a clockwise tour of the island, respecting the monks’ private domain, signalled by symbols of cassocked monks. Resisting their gated pathways strewn with wild geraniums, hug the coast and you can’t go wrong. From the jetty, head east, passing well-tended vineyards and olive groves. On the east of the island are tiny bays and ruined chapels, a reminder that some date back over a millennium. Curiously, the island is also dotted with furnaces that forged cannonballs in Napoleonic times.

The fortified monastery is the most romantic building, standing sentinel on the southern shore, facing the open sea. Soon to be restored, this stark medieval citadel defended the community against Saracen raids.It is without equal in the Mediterranean. Climb the eerie staircase to the roof terraces for views over the honey-tinted abbey and the mountains beyond across the water.

The Abbey

From here, a path leads to the handsome abbey, mostly dating from the 19^th century. The abbey complex is worked by the twenty-strong monks, who toil in the vineyards, lavender beds and herb gardens. The black-and-white cassocked Brothers can be wafting through the wisteria-hung cloisters towards the winery. As monastic tradition dictates, the fragrant herbs often end up in potent liqueurs, fortified by Menton lemons and secret brews.

The abbey church is most compelling at Easter Day Mass, when the simple but heartfelt `service of light’ justifies the crossing. If doing a retreat here, you can even join the monks in the Saturday night Easter Vigil, held before sunrise on Easter Day. Later, if you are lucky enough to bump into the beaming Frere Marie-Pacques, he might be toasting the Resurrection with a glass of abbey wine.

Spirits for the spiritual

There have probably been vineyards here since the foundation of the abbey as wine was needed for Holy Communion. Brother Marie-Pâques, in charge of wine-making, began as a beekeeper before God called him to serve. Today, the 8-hectare vineyards are renowned for their unique terroir that produces wines of great subtlety, helped by the temperate, maritime climate and the minerality of the soil. After tasting the abbey wines, whether St Honorat or St Saveur, sacrilegious visitors have been known to cry: “Hallelujah, there is a god!”

If keen on Bordeaux-style wines, toast the monks in their own brew: Brother Marie-Pâques is certain that the island vineyards offer a unique ‘terroir’ that is behind the striking freshness and minerality of the wines, reinforced by the salty air and marine breezes. Sample the renowned wines in the abbey boutique, bar or restaurant (see below). Instead, the affordable liqueurs include: Lérincello, made with Menton lemons; citrussy Lérina Jaune; and herby Lérina Verte, made with mint, aniseed and verbena.

Where to eat

La Tonnelle,  the charming waterfront restaurant, is only open for lunch. Choose from reasonably-priced grilled meats, seafood, shellfish, foie gras and salads, matched with (pricey but special) monastic wines. This is a proper restaurant but Les Canisses (11.45am-5pm, open year-round) serves snacks such as panini, sandwiches, ice cream, coffee and cakes (lemon tart and chocolate cake for tea); lounge bar too.

Shopping in the Iles de Lérins

The islands are a shopping-free zone. But if you’re pushing the boat out, buy the renowned abbey wines (or better-value liqueurs) which can be sampled at the Abbaye de Lérins, or over the water in Cannes.

How to get to the Isles de Lérins off Cannes

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