Hôtel Fleur de Sel

Noirmoutier has a personality all its own: this group of simple white buildings in its Mediterranean garden is typical, sitting tranquilly between sea and salt marsh, long sandy beach and little yachting harbour. Perfect for family holidays, it has a tennis court, golf driving range, big pool and outdoor hot tub. Bedrooms are good too, some in classic cosy style with country fabrics and teak and pine, others more bracing with ship-shape yew furniture and yachting motifs; several have little ground-floor terraces. The delightful, caring owners have humour and intelligence and their daughter’s paintings sit well in several of the rooms. The chef has worked with the very best in Paris and meals are served by courteous waiters in the airy, raftered dining room or on the oleander-lined terrace. It is all clean-cut, sun-warmed, impeccable and welcoming: you will feel sheltered. There is a bridge but try and come by the Passage du Gois causeway, open for three hours at low tide: an unforgettable four-kilometre drive ‘through the sea’ where shellfish-diggers cluster. The island is naturally very popular in summer.