France Guide
Poitou-Charentes and the Atlantic coast
The Île d'Oléron
The Île d'Oléron is France's largest island after Corsica and a favourite of day-trippers and families in the summer months for its beautiful sandy beaches. It's up the road from Marennes, joined to the mainland by a bridge and reachable in an hour on bus #6 from Rochefort. In July and August, nippy minibuses also connect the main towns on the island, see 
www.lesmouettes-transport.com for timetables.
Flat and wooded, Oléron has plenty of greenery, with the extensive pine-studded Forêt des Saumonards in the northeast of the island; here you can eyeball a dazzling panorama of the surrounding parcs à huîtres and the mighty Fort Boyard. At the island's southern tip, the larger Forêt de St-Trojan creeps up the western coast along La Grande Plage, a popular spot but far enough from the main towns not to be too crowded. The island interior is pretty and distinctive. Waterways wind right into the land, their gleaming muddy banks overhung by round fishing nets suspended from ranks of piers. There are so many oyster claires that, from above, the island must look like an Afghan mirrored cushion; the stretch from Boyardville to St-Pierre – with its pines, tamarisks and woods of evergreen oak – is the most attractive.
Most of the little towns on the island have inevitably suffered from the development of hundreds of holiday homes – and it can be a real battle in the summer season to find a place to stay. There are a few places that still retain some amount of charm, however, not least of which is the main town in the south of the island, LE CHÂTEAU, named after the citadel that still stands, along with some seventeenth-century fortifications. The town thrives on its traditional oyster farming and boat building, and there's a lively market in place de la République every morning.
The best beach, meanwhile, is at LA BRÉE LES BAINS, in the northeast.