{"id":1162700,"date":"2026-08-22T07:48:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T07:48:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1162700\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T07:48:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T07:48:30","slug":"frances-underrated-islands-of-oyster-shacks-pine-forests-and-antiquated-villages-are-the-best-kept-summer-secret","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1162700\/","title":{"rendered":"France’s underrated islands of oyster shacks, pine forests and antiquated villages are the best-kept summer secret"},"content":{"rendered":"

There\u2019s an aroma from another stall in this part of the market, more elemental even than the mushrooms. It\u2019s white potatoes: they have a distinctive flavour from the limestone in the soil and all the seaweed fertiliser. They\u2019re harvested just before maturity, and their cooked skins feel like silk coming away in the mouth. Something as simple as a potato becomes magic in the Charente-Maritime region. It\u2019s the same with its salt, the \u201cwhite gold\u201d harvested and traded here since the 11th century. Incredibly delicate, almost sweet, with faint traces of magnesium and calcium, it made La Rochelle, by the 17th century, fiscally and politically supremely important to France. Salt pans fill the mesmerising island marshes. On Ol\u00e9ron it\u2019s possible to take the six-mile loop around them on a bicycle, but riders should pedal with care: during high season on either island, bell-chiming shoals of cyclists pass, sometimes on tandems, sometimes snogging, or shouting about directions under circling gulls.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

Baked goods at La Flotte market<\/p>\n

Oliver Pilcher\"Image<\/p>\n

Antiques gallery in Saint-Martin-de-R<\/p>\n

Oliver Pilcher<\/p>\n

On R\u00e9 one quiet day in late summer, I cycle from Ars-en-R\u00e9 through the marshes towards the island\u2019s smallest village, Loix, my route fringed in salicornia, a marsh samphire, turning Septemberishly rusty. Images and memories become weirdly indistinct in these marshes, but on this day I\u2019m sure I can recall a sundial roughly painted on the side of a salt worker\u2019s hut. White horses pushing their muzzles into spiky marram grass. And somewhere near La Couarde-sur-Mer, paludier Hugo, his hands tanned and streaked after a summer hard at it, taking a break from his work to show me the coarser salt at the bottom of his pans, metallic grey and briny, perfect for preserving. And then the Fleur de Sel: the white salt harvested from the surface in a thin film, light as sea spray when dried, amplifying any flavour.<\/p>\n

\"Image<\/p>\n

Seafood at La Cabane de la Patache on the island<\/p>\n

Oliver Pilcher<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s an aroma from another stall in this part of the market, more elemental even than the mushrooms.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1162701,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5309],"tags":[2000,299,36,27538,32453,18753],"class_list":["post-1162700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-france","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-france","tag-inspiration","tag-islands","tag-magazine"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117138066160788982","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1162700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1162700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1162701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1162700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1162700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1162700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}