Île de Ré Salt Marshes & Cycling Routes
Connected to La Rochelle by a 3-kilometre bridge, the Île de Ré is a flat, luminous island of white villages, vine-covered lanes and working salt marshes where sea salt has been harvested by hand since the Middle Ages. The island has 110 kilometres of dedicated cycling paths — the finest network in the French Atlantic islands.
The Salt Marshes of Loix and Ars-en-Ré
The marshes around the villages of Loix and Ars-en-Ré turn extraordinary shades of pink and violet in late summer when microalgae bloom in the shallow pans. The salt workers, called paludiers, rake the delicate fleur de sel by hand each morning — you can watch them work and buy bags of salt directly from the producers at roadside stands.
The Sentier des Marais, a flat walking and cycling path that loops around the marshes north of Loix, is the best way to explore at slow pace. Egrets, avocets and black-winged stilts wade in the shallows alongside the path year-round.
Cycling the Island
Rent bikes in La Rochelle at the Les Minimes ferry terminal or on the island itself in Saint-Martin-de-Ré, the island's elegant walled capital. The route from Saint-Martin through the marshes to the Phare des Baleines lighthouse at the island's western tip is 22 kilometres of almost entirely flat cycling through some of the most quietly beautiful landscape on the Atlantic coast.
The island's villages — Ars-en-Ré with its distinctive black-and-white church spire, and La Flotte with its flower-filled harbour — are worth stopping in for a cold glass of the island's own Pineau des Charentes before cycling back.
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