Blimey, well I suppose that our few trips there is a bit like living in London and never seeing the tower, a little over 2 hours from us and we enjoy Re but obviously missed a lot, also Port Punay and La Rochelle well worth re visiting

Ars-en-Re....... makes me chuckle every time!
Lovely review, thanks.

You're very welcome, Colin.

A couple of things that I forgot to mention during the review but also worth noting. In the past, the Magayants or peasant farmers, used to construct 'fish locks' by building a series of stone walls each I would guess being 100m long and which formed a box accessible from the land. At certain points within these walls were built small grills which allowed the receding water at low tide to flow out of the lock. At a certain point in time, the farmer would leave his fields, wade into the lock and retrieve the now trapped fish before returning to his work in the fields once more. At one time there were upwards of 140 locks dating back several hundred years although now there are less than three remaining and even these are not in operation any more.

If this sort of thing interests you then the remains of one can be seen at low tide just off the coast by St. Marie-de-Re along with a small museum in the village called Lancre Maritaise. They do have a website but it's all in French as are the exhibits although interesting all the same if you happen to be cycling by. Lancre Maritaise.jpg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)

One of the things that we enjoyed doing but please keep in mind that we are simple people and, therefore, enjoy the simple things in life, was to cycle across the island to St. Martin-de-Re where we'd enjoy a nice meal in one of the harbour restaurants before cycling back several hours later or even at some ungodly hour of the morning when it was Basille Day. It takes at most 15 mins to cycle from one side of the island (Le Bois) across to St. Martin-de-Re although it's all across open land on narrow roads. There are no street lamps obviously and whilst the bikes come with both front and rear lights etc we found that the wearing of a headtorch added an extra dimension. Riding across open land in the middle of the night with only the moon and starts to be seen in the heavans above and with the wind in the hair was truly romantic and something that we'd never dream of doing back home. Headtorch.jpg - Bild entfernt (keine Rechte)

I'll leave you with a few seconds of life in the campsite Jacuzzi. I've no idea who this guy is although I'm reliably informed that he's ex Navy and a qualified diver to boot. You'd never believe it though and to me he appears more like a fish out of water.