Monday, August 8, 2011

ile de Ré

After Porquerolles, I spent a couple of days in L'Ile de Ré on the Atlantic Coast. The easiest way to get there is to take a TGV (high-speed train) to La Rochelle, it's about 3 hours from Paris. Then 45 minutes of driving and you are there !
The biggest asset of this island is THE FOOD !! In Les Portes, the village where I stayed, there's a 6 day food market (and cute jewelry and clothing too) and for a New Yorker, it's just heaven. 
From 9 am to 1 pm, from tuesday to sunday, the village goes a little crazy and the two rivals café on Place de la Liberté, La Case à vent et le Bazenne, are packed. If you are a parisian (or used to be one), you are guaranty to bump into many people you know. Because of the quality of the food, you have tendency to cook at home but there are three places that I highly recommend : for lunch on the Trousse-chemise beach : Chez bernadette (officially called La cabane des trois hiboux) a little shack with plastic chairs and simple food : avocado terrine with crab, mussels. On a rainy day (Ré has a micro-climate and it tends to rain more that in the south.., we rode our bikes 15 miles to La cabane du Feneau  on the road de Loix : also very simple, you are surrounded by salt marshes and you eat the best sea food nicely presented in a box (see picture below), we had a mix of sea food followed by grilled gambas. Everything in your plate comes from the restaurant's farming sea food so it couldn't be fresher !Try the caramel rice pudding it's a killer..
For dinner, one of the nicest restaurant is Le Chasse-marée, the owners are Daniel and Pam (an American transplan) Fauquenot. it's located on the place de Liberté and has a nice terrace so so you are in the middle of the village action. 




spreads selection




fresh flowers from the market

the mixed sea-food basket 

my room !

walk on the beach with paci & paciana


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