Last weekend, in celebration of our thirtieth wedding anniversary, we took ourselves off to Île de Ré for a short vacation. Because Ed's choir sang on Friday evening, we left on Saturday and came back Monday. The island is known for its oyster and other shellfish production, as well as for its salt. There's a graceful bridge, almost 3 kilometers long, leading from the mainland at La Rochelle to the island, whose population swells by 200,000 people in the summer—a time we'll definitely avoid visiting!
Saturday evening we had a seafood dinner, then walked above the beach watching the orange moon rise from the water with a bright Jupiter above it.
Sunday morning we toured the island. Mid-morning, we stopped at the town of Les Portes for a walk around and found this fishmonger open. It was a wonderful shop, smelling of the sea and not of fish.
As we went to look for a cafe, we were passed by a group of bikers. (Sam and Pat, they reminded us of your biking group.) When we stopped for cups of hot chocolate on a sunny café terrace, we found the bikers already there. (That's Kaye on the right, in blue, under a chalkboard.)
The island has a lot of bike paths, reminding us of the Netherlands, and these seem to be used by locals as well as by tourists. We plan to take ours along for our next visit, if we don't rent some locally.
After our break we walked in a nearby nature reserve, unfortunately arriving at low tide and at midday, so there were not too many birds to be seen. But definitely someplace we'll want to visit again. Then we went on to see the lighthouse (phare) on the western tip of the island. Even in off season, this was full of people crowding through your typical collection of tourist stuff, museums, shops, cafés, etc. After our lunch, we went down to the beach. Most of the rocks on the shore are flat. It seems to be a tradition to build piles of rocks.
The shore is full of oyster beds, with the plots divided by jetties made of these stones, turned on edge. Ed walked Pogo out one of the jetties.
A flock of little egrets came in very close to the shore.
And, yes, there is a lighthouse at the end of the island.
Monday morning we walked on a beach on the southeast corner of the island before heading homeward.
The days are definitely getting shorter in these days after the equinox zooming towards the solstice. This bit always goes so fast! A bit of rain Tuesday night filled the empty cisterns and brought the real change to cooler weather. Since then sunny days barely into two digits (C) and low single digits overnight. Even a bit of frost this morning. Luckily our new wood-pellet heater was installed on Tuesday, replacing the fioul heater. It stands in the same place, a bit smaller in footprint, but taller and standing more out from the wall. That's a sack of pellets on the floor. Supposedly it burns less than one sack per day when it's in full flight. With the continuing increases in fuel prices, it looks like it will cost between a third and a half to get it going. It will take several years to pay for itself, but we'll have better, less smelly heat in the meantime.
La Rochefoucauld has recently renovated a derelict Carmelite convent, turning it into a cultural center that includes the tourist bureau and a new concert hall. Thursday evening we attended our first concert there, part of the annual Piano en Valois festival. The concert hall is quite nice, with comfortable seats and good acoustics.
In the gothic-arched lobby space there was an exhibit of photographs and samples of our local industry. The making of Charentaise slippers is the second largest industry in our area (after Cognac, of course). Our eye was caught by one of the pairs of "novelty" slippers, made from nutria, with the whiskered head covering your toes. Um, maybe not.
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