Brightly coloured oyster huts and glorious sandy beaches characterise the Pays Marennes-Oléron.

The world-famous Marennes oysters come from the Pays Marennes-Oléron, which takes in the holiday island of Oléron and the mainland coast opposite. The area has stunning scenery and some fascinating landmarks.
The island of Oléron has beaches for all ages and activities, and the landscapes vary enormously, from pine forest to marshland, cliffs to creeks, saltbeds to sand dunes.

Île d’Oléron: Saumonard beach

The climate is virtually Mediterranean, the sky luminous and the sea air tonic. The Île d’Oléron is easy to get to from Paris, Bordeaux or Lyon, via the 3km toll-free bridge.
Although tourism has developed over the last century, much care has been taken to preserve the area’s character, based on the traditional fishing, oyster, wine and salt trades.

The world is our oyster
The Charente-Maritime is France’s largest oyster producer, and even novices should try this healthy local delicacy. Prehistoric man enjoyed eating them, as shown by the huge number of shells found in archeological sites, but it was the Romans who first started to cultivate them. They became even more popular during the Renaissance and oysters were fattened in specially dug beds (claires) in the salt marshes where fresh seawater could wash through regularly.
Production grew considerably in the 19th century as the saltworks declined, and regulations were introduced to prevent the further destruction of the region’s natural resources.

Oléron’s oyster growers seem to compete for the most colourful cabin

Until then, only one species of oyster was cultivated, la plate, or ‘flat’ oyster, ostrea edulis, but an accident in 1868 introduced what is known as the Portuguese oyster. By the beginning of the 20th century this plumper oyster had two thirds of the market, and was more affordable than the flat kind. Traditional oyster-growers didn’t welcome the newcomer, seeing it as a threat to the quality of their oysters – and livelihood – and a kind of racism developed towards this upstart immigrant. Even scientists were seemingly against it and today it is still classified as cassostrea angulata, not even in the same ostrea family.

It was only the outbreak of a disease that eventually reconciled these hard-line oyster-farmers to the Portuguese variety. The disease devastated the existing beds and the ‘wild’ flat oysters while the new species was found to be resistant to it. In fact, thanks to this sturdy oyster, production has continued today, saving the local industry, as the native flat oyster now counts for a mere 5% of the market.