Un Rhétais (or Rétais) is someone from Ile de Ré, the small, chic-yet-wild Atlantic island in the south west of France - and I spent the best part of my youth trying to become one.
I zoomed around the gorgeously smooth cycle paths as a teen; as a young adult, I scooped ice creams for wide-eyed children who pressed their little noses excitedly against the glass counter; I even spent the best part of a year living and working on an oyster farm, in a large white house slap bang in the middle of blustery, sun-drenched oyster beds and salt marshes, bordered by unruly samphire, that stretched as far as the eye could see.It’s here Audrey Tautou buys market patisserie, politicians peek out from behind crisp copies of Le Figaro to sip their morning.
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