Plan your visit
Île de Ré is one of France’s great natural sites — bring good shoes and a camera. Locate it on the map, book a room nearby in a click, or add it to your travel list to build your itinerary.
About Île de Ré
Linked to La Rochelle by a great curving bridge, the Île de Ré is a low, luminous island of white-washed villages, salt marshes, oyster beds and endless cycle paths, beloved for its gentle beauty and its famous quality of light. Green-shuttered houses draped in hollyhocks line the lanes of villages like Saint-Martin-de-Ré, whose Vauban fortifications are listed by UNESCO, and Ars-en-Ré with its distinctive black-and-white steeple. Salt-workers still harvest the delicate fleur de sel from geometric marsh basins, home to countless wading birds, and long sandy beaches and pine forests fringe the coast. Flat, sunlit and made for the bicycle, dotted with markets, lighthouses and famous donkeys, the Île de Ré is one of the most charming islands on the French Atlantic coast.