One day the Île d’Oléron

After our intense three days in the Loire Valley, we return to the coast to continue our original itinerary towards the Île d’Oléron.

The Ile d’Oléron is France’s largest island after Corsica and is 30km long and 6km wide. The main towns are the capital Saint-Pierre d’Oléron in the centre of the long island, La Bree-les-Bains  on the north,  le Château d’Oléron on the east coast and further south Saint Trojan-les-Bains.

Given it was such a small island, we were only going to stay here to do a nice walk in the morning and have some oysters for lunch. Growing oysters seems to be a significant economic activity here. They are grown in bays across the entire island, hanging from sticks, under the water. When the tide is low you can spot them but unfortunately, we timed the tide wrong so no chance to take a photo.

After a along drive from the Loire Valley, we arrived at the island quite late (around 18.00). The aire we chose to stay that night at La Bree-les-Bains wasn’t precisely the prettiest so far; it was rather scuzzy, as it was close to an industrial estate. We were hoping the workers didn’t start their day very early! (bit selfish from our part, you may say).

There were two other motorhomes already in the aire when we arrived. I keep telling Gary that we don’t really follow the motorhomers lifestyle very well. Every time we arrive, other motorhomers seemed to have settled in long before; they are all are watching TV.  They have normally gone to bed by the time we are having dinner (nine Nish). Moreover, when we leave the aire in the morning, they all seem to be getting up. They end up having less than ten hours to do things during the day. Perhaps they manage their time better or, they just simply do less things than we do.

Never mind how late we arrived, we followed our routine of going for a quick stroll around the village before locking ourselves in Dora for the night. The weather was dark, gloomy and drizzling, a typical autumn day. The island seemed to have shut down for the season: the majority of the hotels were closed, with just a few remaining open to pick up the odd customer escaping from the summer crowd; the holiday cottages were sadly abandoned, windows shutters close and doors shored up; the cafes, covered in leaves from the trees. All very gloomy but an atmosphere that is quite compelling to us as we don’t enjoy the crowds.

Even though it wasn’t summer we could gather the ambience of the place, a typical seaside town: white, practical holiday houses; children’s theme parks, and lots of cafes and restaurants. Nothing really differentiated this place from any other resort across the globe, everything built oriented around the tourists. No real identity, it could be anywhere. In truth, during peak season, this is our worst nightmare.

Fortunately, we awoke to a nice and bright morning, perfect for our walk. We decided to start from the beach, walk through the woods and end it up in the “Salinas”, the French name for the water bays where salt is harvested and the oysters were grown. We were hoping that the tide was out and the sea would have uncovered the water. In addition, Gary wanted to see a bit of bird life. He hasn’t seen much of it in France, strangely enough, not many bird around. Maybe because we have not been in the right places to enjoy it.

We feel so lucky to be able to appreciate the beach view as soon as we get up.

We don’t seem to get bored of this scene, as you may have already gathered from our previous posts.

Unfortunately, all went wrong from this point. From the map, dozens of foot paths seemed to cross backwards and forwards from the beach to the salinas. The map we were using had been provided by the tourist office, so it didn’t have the contour lines and elevations of a proper walking map. Clearly, we were going to get lost in the woods.

Our predictions were correct. We did get lost. After walking for three hours, we ended up at the beach we had started at, brilliant!

So as we were quite busy trying to find where we were, we didn’t take many photos of the walk. Only these ones of cobwebs (or as I would normally say ‘webcobs’, I always get this word wrong, no matter how long I live in the UK ). We were enchanted by its beauty.

The mist and damp from the previous day made this into a wonderful piece of art, created by nature. Gary poked the spider with a stick to make it run over the web but it just didn’t want to move.

Quite depressed about being unable to complete the loop, we headed off to the nearest oyster stand that was open, as it well passed lunchtime. The idea of having our oyster feast made us forget about the walk.

The way to have oysters on the island is as a snack, accompanied with ‘pineau’ which we later found out was an alcoholic drink made from grape juice and cognac. This should be followed by cognac! It was too early for alcohol for us. We could have made an effort and had a glass of both with our oysters to try, however, the stand only sold by the bottle and they were too expensive. What if we don’t like it?

There were lots of different types of oyster to choose from. They were incredibly good value. As we were not able to communicate with the shop assistant to ask for her recommendation, we went for the biggest ones, as I normally do. “Burro grande ande o no ande” – sorry this quote is for the Spaniards, there is no English translation available but you can try on google translate, which is quite funny – .

The biggest ones and also the cheapest, a dozen oysters for €3.90. This was definitely going to be an oysters feast.

The lack of a proper tool to open the oysters didn’t stop Gary coming up with a practical solution. He opened his DIY cupboard and grabbed a screwdriver, stainless steel so it was hygienic. It worked!

Drown in lemon juice, they were incredibly tasty, clean and fresh, one of the supreme delights that nature has given us, although we admit we still feel unease about their slimy texture.

It was 17.00, we were ready for another long drive towards Bordeaux, where we would spend the weekend enjoying more wine and visiting more Chateaux.

See you there!

SM