More than a bike ride: Ile de Ré

23-26 June

If it wasn’t so easy to get out of La Rochelle (a truckie stopped for the two lost travellers, told them to go back to the last roundabout and turn right, adding that the roundabout did NOT have that direction on it), it was certainly easy to access the 4km long Pont de Ré, which joins La Rochelle to the Ile de Ré. There is a cycle path that leads up to and goes right over the bridge, then continues along the seashore on the other side. In fact the Ile de Ré has about 100km of cycle paths and shared roads and it was no problem to get to La Flotte, one of the more beautiful places on the island. The camping grounds were all out of town and a place like La Flotte deserves to be enjoyed from the centre of town - the Hotel le Français was perfect. It was a port town but due to the high rise and fall of the tide the port was really only usable around high tide and was mud for much of the day when we were there.

The Ile de Ré was an early-adopter of cycle paths and proves the point that if you provide such pathways, people will come and use them. We have never seen so many people on cycle paths - and this was before ‘the season’ began. We left on the 26th June and would not like to be there any later - just so many people! There are bikes for hire everywhere. ‘Ordinary’ bikes, bikes with children’s attachments, bikes with trailers [chariots] for kids or dogs to be pulled in, electrically-assisted bikes, three-wheeler bikes for adults, tandems, children’s bikes in at least three different sizes. The parents seem very good at putting helmets on their children’s heads but you won’t find the parents themselves wearing helmets. They just don’t. Tourists like ourselves wear them, and lycra-suited road-bikers - hardly anyone else.

We spent a day cycling around the island and visited most of the towns/villages on our 75km day. The island is largely flat, except for the dunes, and large areas are below sea-level, which are ideal for salt extraction in the traditional way. There are large areas of nature reserve, vines for wine, cognac and pineau, local oysters (we even had some!), spring potatoes from the Ile de Ré are deemed to be a tasty luxury and sought after, even if pricey. There are even Vauban fortifications, enclosing entirely the town of St-Martin-de-Ré. The climate has been compared with the Mediterranean, and the island is a popular summer holiday destination. We left on the 26th June, before the rush, and decided we would not like to be there any later, as there was quite enough of a crowd for us even then.