Some like it brash. Others prefer it understated. That includes me. I started visiting Ile de Ré a good decade ago, at a time that it was becoming an increasingly fashionable retreat for the Parisian intelligentsia ... and before it had been discovered by the Brits. The place had a distinctly demure feeling to it - a cross between Cape Cod and the dacha-land that surrounds Moscow, but with ample sunshine (2,600 hours a year, so they say) and excellent food attached.
The guidebooks describe the dozen or so small towns and villages that comprise the island as the "St Tropez of the Atlantic". They are having you on - Ile de Ré is far more stylish than that. It is in its own way just as exclusive, but without the garishness. And yet, as you walk of a late summer's evening past the large white stone villas, with their high walls and sophisticated security, you hear the laughter of the haute bourgeoisie at play and you know you are an outsider. It is sometimes hard to tell apart the moneyed from the very moneyed. So strict are the building regulations that houses are rarely higher than one storey and have to have their shutters painted green. The tallest buildings on the island are lighthouses and church steeples. There are most definitely no billboards, large roads or chain restaurants or hotels.
Among the island's more illustrious inhabitants are Lionel Jospin, the former Socialist prime minister, who has a place in Ars en Ré and is mocked in France's own version of Spitting Image for making fish soup in his holiday kitchen. On the celebrity front, the island can boast Vanessa Paradis and Johnny Depp, and the occasional sighting of Princess Caroline of Monaco, while Charles Aznavour once wrote a song about the forest at the tip of the island, Le Bois de Trousse Chemise. Many of the holidaymakers may have been coming each year for several generations, but there is still enough of a transient population to give the place a friendly feel as well.
A single main road takes you from the entry point - an impressive, curving bridge that links to the mainland at La Rochelle - to the far end of the island some 30km away, the village of Les Portes and the spooky lighthouse of the Baleines. Apart from getting you to your accommodation, the car has no further use. The island should be navigated by bicycle. The paths, about 100km in total, are extremely well laid out and marked; the terrain is completely flat; rental shops abound, and because everybody is doing it, virtually nothing can go wrong, day or night. The paths wind their way from one village to another past scented pine forests, vineyards, salt marshes, oyster farms, fig trees, and fields of sunflowers. In the summer, tall hollyhocks burst through the cracks, providing a splash of colour. Wherever you go, you are never very far from forests of ferns, from which the island takes its name.
Some of the cyclists are in full Lycra gear, their heads down. Others are families strolling along. My two daughters, wife and I belonged in the latter category. Our progress became even slower as we skirted the bird sanctuary. Even though we are the antithesis of twitchers, we couldn't help but be beguiled by the sights and sounds. More than 300 species have been recorded on the island, among them, so I'm told, waders, terns, gulls, raptors and bluethroats. The other sport we indulged in was horseriding. The island has a number of stables, and you can gallop on the sands or canter through the forests. But the one near the village of La Flotte was particularly good with children and has a residential course in the summer.
The island's normal population is 15,000, but it is multiplied by 10 in summertime. So small is the place (only 3km wide) that the towns can feel quite claustrophobic - but nothing compared to the Côte d'Azur - and even in August it is possible to trek across the dunes to find a hideout to escape. The brisk winds ensure that it remains cool enough to stay out most of the day, to sail, windsurf or play tennis or boules.
I had not been back for quite some years, and never out of season, so it was with some curiosity that my family went back to the island recently. There was a specific reason for going. I had heard about the Hôtel de Toiras - it was, I was told, the ultimate boutique hotel, and the first on the island. (Most people stay in self-catering villas or in upmarket bed and breakfasts.)
Owner Olivia Mathé is a rarity. She combines a very Anglo-Saxon entrepreneurial spirit with Gallic style. A couple of years ago, she and a few members of her family bought a disused townhouse and store house in the middle of the island's harbour capital, St Martin, and turned it into the Hôtel de Toiras. In just one year, she has achieved the remarkable feat of getting into the prestigious Relais and Chateau guide, while Le Figaro described her restaurant, La Table d'Olivia, as the best on the island.
The hotel is already a hit with French and foreigners alike. The arrival of low-cost airlines to La Rochelle has made the island accessible within an hour and a half of a number of UK airports. Perhaps as a form of protest, we decided to go our familiar route - train to Paris, cross the capital, and then TGV for another three hours. Nothing beats a high-speed French train journey for slowing down the blood pressure for your arrival on holiday. Which came in handy for the hotel. Within minutes, I was beamed into a world of luxury with a very un-French informality.
There is no frippery or flummery here. The focus instead is on its 12 rooms and suites, each named after a French or English aristocrat, author or adventurer, such as Madame de Sevigne or the Duke of Buckingham. Each room has a four-poster bed with brocaded cushions, and its unique colour scheme, choice of antique furniture and original design (ours came with a bath in the middle of the room). Most have a naval feel. One room is devoted to a botanist, Nicolas Boudin, who was sent by Napoleon to explore Australasia. Another is in memory of Pierre Loti, a gentleman-adventurer who brought back a number of ornate pieces from India and was adored by Louis XIII. The hotel's coat of arms come from the illustrious Marechal Jean de Caylar de Saint Bonnet de Toiras, who defended the island against the English in 1627.
Then there is the food, prepared for guests six nights a week by 24-year-old up and coming star Tómas Urbanek. If you ask him, Tomas will take you (one group at a time) to the market, where he introduces you to the fishmonger, the cheese specialist and the finest patissiere on the island. Tomas's signature dishes include scallops foie gras and a langoustine cooked with cognac, or a more simple cod with ginger. Meals are served in the Jardin Hivre, the dining room which looks on to a shaded interior garden. You can watch Tomas slaving, all alone, through a glass front to the kitchen. Otherwise, you can eat in the library, staring at the bookshelves and the white stone fireplace.
Lunch is not served at the hotel, which is possibly just as well as St Martin and outlying villages have a number of top quality restaurants. By the quayside, you can watch fishermen bring in their vessels. One particularly good restaurant is called La Baleine. Alternatively, you can sit outside eating oysters and sipping white wine. On another occasion, we stopped for an unfancy galette and cider in a terraced cafe. Wherever you go, you can just perch your bike outside.
The hotel is so small and intimate that the glamorous Mathé and her team are always on hand. Just leave it to her to suggest the wine: we were treated to the best mersault I have ever drunk, and it won't require a second mortgage. Afterwards she will - ever the diplomat - advise on either her grand selection of French cognac or Scottish malt whisky.
There is, for sure, much pleasure to be had in cooking and shopping for yourself in a place like Ile de Ré, where the local stores do not stint in quality. Returning to the house with a baguette nestling in the bike's front basket is part of the visitor's fantasy of a France that once was. But, now that I have experienced it, I would take the Hôtel de Toiras anytime. There are not many places where, after an exacting day cycling or horse riding, you can return to your sumptuous room, while your four-course dinner awaits in the study, and listen to the clink, clink of the wind on the masts of the boats outside.
· John Kampfner is the editor of New Statesman.
Way to go
Getting there
In July, Flybe (0871 7000535, flybe.com) flies Birmingham-La Rochelle for £123.14 return inc tax, and from Southampton for £125.84; Ryanair (ryanair.com) flies from Stansted for £89.98.
Where to stay
Hôtel de Toiras, 1 Quai Job Foran, Saint-Martin-de-Ré (+5 4635 4032, hotel-de-toiras.com) doubles from €120 a night.
Further information
Ile de Ré Tourisme, BP 28, Le Bois Plage-en-Ré 17580 (+5 4609 0055, iledere .com). Maison de la France (09068 244123, franceguide.com).
Country code: 00 33.
Flight time Stansted-La Rochelle: 1½hrs.
£1= 1.38 euros.
