Holidays on Ile de Ré, France

We took the ferry from Poole to Cherbourg; calm crossing thankfully, and then drove through Normandy that evening to a campsite near Dol de Bretagne for an overnight stop before continuing south through Brittany, the Loire valley and the Vendée to La Rochelle. We crossed the long hump-backed bridge conecting Ile de Ré to the mainland and arrived at our campsite in the pine woods behind the beach at Gros Jonc.

We spent most of our time either cycling around the island or down on the beach. We had a couple of lazy days where we just hung around the campsite, swam in the pool. Fiachra and Oisín loved heading up to the playground and trampolines. The site was quiet so they often had the place to themselves.


Just across the island from Gros Jonc was the small town of La Flotte. It had a small harbour, nice market and a beach. This was probably our favourite of all the islands villages & towns.
Just outside the town was the ruins of a 13th century Cistercian abbey and a 17th century fort (a look-out for Pirates!!). The town also had an old-style carousel which the boys had a spin around.


Our longest cycle was 30km to the western end of the island to the Plage de Conche and the Phare des Baleines. The beach had three German-built WWII gun bunkers still in place. We went up to the top of the lighthouse for a look around. Fiachra climbed all the way up by himself.


Around the island, the road-marker poles and fence posts were often covered in snails. I'm not really sure why they gathered up high off the ground like this. Maybe it was cooler on the posts than on the ground?


The weather in the second week broke up a bit and we had a one stormy night and a few showery days.


Our friends Jamie, Elaine, Ollie and Finn arrived at Gros Jonc for the last few days of our holiday. We had great days on the beach at La Flotte and Gros Jonc, building and destroying sand-castles, and surfing.

Fiachra cycled his own bike (without stabilisers) for the first time while we were in France and by the end of the holidays he was nipping up to the loos on his bike and he even went for cycle into the nearest town to play in the park there.


We left Ile de Ré for Cherbourg on the Monday night. After some panic, as we drove around on the last vapours in the tank looking for a petrol station that was open and would accept our credit card, we headed off at 2230 hrs on the overnight drive. We reached the ferry port at 0530 on Tuesday morning and were back home by noon.