Day 15 (Discovering Ile de Ré)

Our main objective in this area (La Rochelle) was to visit Ile-de-Ré. I guess the reason for this was that we read the book series ("A year in the merde" and "Merde actually") describing the misadventures of a young english man in France (Paris mostly). One of the chapters of the last book describes Ile-de-Ré (an island that is now connected to land permanently by a bridge, very famous among Paris people that come there to the beach or to relax over the weekends. It seemed very picturesque by the book descriptions and we were curious to see it.

We were not disappointed. A drawback which is also pointed out in the book is that it is 9 euros!!! to enter the island (crazy french).

The 9euro bridge to and from Ile-de-Ré!!!!

Anyway, the island is quite big. It can take 30min by car just to reach the furthest end. We went to a place called Ars-en-Ré first (which in the book the character jokes with by comparing it to the english word arse / ass ).

It is a small place with narrow streets and mostly white little houses along. It also has nice small shops with local products (artisan and bakery type).

Street at Ars-en-Ré

One of the details that can be found in the streets of Ars

Like described in the book the place is a haven for bicycle riders and indeed there were many groups of people on bikes.

We continued our drive further to the tip of the island to reach the lighthouse and check the view over the Atlantic.

The new lighthouse!

The old lighthouse!

Almost lunch time (13h) we headed back to the middle of the island to see the UNESCO world patrimony village of Saint-Martin-de-Ré and its fortifications. It is a bigger place than Ars with a nice marina area where one can get quite nice french food at relatively good price. The fortifications are well preserved and  make for a nice visit.

The marina of Saint-Martin-de-Ré

The walls and the sea

A view of the town seen from the bell tower (and old church arcade ruins)

The french cuisine at St-Martin ;) (it was "canard" / duck)

We were happy with our visit to Ile-de-Ré. Just one final thing before we finished our day... We found out that close to La Rochelle (a bit to the south) is located the famous Fort Boyard (anyone remember the adventure TV game show? LOL)

We were not able to go there but at least one can see it from shore. It was just a curiosity that we wanted to check out.

Fort Boyard is the small thing in the center :P

Zoomed LOL

And close by another Fort (Fort Vauban). This place is infested with Forts LOL

Tomorrow is time to move again (our last move in France before the big departure to Portugal, in principle). There is a last minute change of plans. We are not going to pass by Bordeaux. We are tired of busy cities and need some relaxation before finishing our travel. We are going direct to a place close to "Dune Du Pilat" (which we really wanted to check out) and get some deserved rest there :)