Great, I thought, just what the world needs – another virtual human who will not understand my question and send me off down the wrong road in my search for an answer.
It is the sort of offer that most tourists would jump at: an all-expenses paid return visit to a dream destination, as amends for a sleight by an unscrupulous host.
British tourists Shanti Andrews and Rebecca Turner are being held in a Brazilian prison known as “Cell Zero-Zero” on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro.
Known as the “Manhattan Project,” back in 1943 in the town of Hanford in Washington state, 600 square miles of dusty land became the site for the world’s first full-scale plutonium production reactor
Our cycling expert Susan Greenwood recommends her top UK routes for getting to grips with mountain biking
I like to recommend the smaller, quirkier parts of Shropshire to my guests, and I encourage them all to tread the footsteps of ancient drovers on the Kerry Ridgeway. The historic tracks criss-cross the forested area of the Marches, and were once the main route from Wales to London for droving cattle, sheep and geese. Along the way, you can take in the views from the motte and bailey castle Bishop’s Moat, the iron age hill fort, Caer Din, and the bronze age burial site, the Two Tumps.
Berry’s Coffee House in Church Stretton is renowned for award-winning cheap eats. All the food is locally sourced or Fairtrade and everything is homemade. The lemonade is delicious, and there are wines and beers from across the county as well as cheese scones and cakes. The quirky building was built in 1703 on its narrow site with the front door on the side of the house to maximise space.
• 01694 724452, berryscoffeehouse.co.uk
The stunning late-Victorian mansion Stokesay Court near Ludlow was the primary location for the film adaptation of Ian McEwan’s Atonement. The production team fell for the mansion’s unspoilt charm. It’s a lived-in private home, but you can book a behind the scenes tour.
• 01584 856238, stokesaycourt.com. Tours £15pp, Tue to Sun, book in advance
This quirky little village hidden in the Shropshire hills is full of characters. It’s known for its hippie atmosphere, with one house painted with polka dots, another on stilts and even a tipi commune on the outskirts. The pubs in the village are great, with the UK’s oldest independent brewery, the Three Tuns, providing much of the ale.
• 01588 638467, bishopscastle.co.uk/tourism
This cave in Nesscliffe was home to notorious highwayman Sir Humphrey Kynaston. He reportedly inherited the family home of Myddle Castle but was outlawed for his debts in 1491. He took to a cave in Nesscliffe hill and every night led his horse up a set of stone steps he carved in the rockface. The cave and steps remain to this day.
shropshiretourism.co.uk/myths-and-legends
• Kate Grubb is the manager of Ecocabin, (ecocabin.co.uk), which offers environmentally responsible self-catering holiday cabins in the south Shropshire hills. She lives in Obley
Nodding off in the library is encouraged at St Deiniol’s, where you can spend the night and help yourself to a bedtime read from a vast collection
A shaft of sunlight through the dusty motes and the perfect pillow formed by that pile of books … I have nodded off in a few libraries in my time, but I have never properly slept in one. Until now.
A residential library, a house full of books where you come to stay, is a decidedly odd prospect – particularly when it is also a memorial to a prime minister. A holiday at St Deiniol’s Library in north-east Wales is definitely not an orthodox tourist experience but it offers a glorious escape from the pace and materialism of our modern lives.
When you arrive at its stout wooden door, it is impossible not to think of an Oxbridge or Ivy League college. This grand, late-Victorian building of reddish Cheshire sandstone and leaded window whispers “studiousness” in a hushed tone.
St Deiniol’s was founded by William Ewart Gladstone, that colossus of 19th-century Liberalism who spent 60 years in parliament and was prime minister four times. During the decades of noble public service, Gladstone acquired 33,000 books and, somehow, found time to plough through 22,000 of them. We know this because he also took a moment to keep fastidious notes of every book he read.
Towards the end of his life, Gladstone rejected the idea of giving his collection to Oxford University. It had, he decided, enough books. Instead, he wanted to promote public learning in less fortunate places and, as he always felt he had missed his vocation to be an Anglican priest, he decided to turn his collection into a public library “for the pursuit of divine learning” in his home village of Hawarden, near Chester and within easy reach of the industrial centres of Liverpool and Manchester. Aged 82, he packed up his books, put them in a barrow and wheeled them to the temporary building in the village that became his library. Gladstone planned but never saw his residential library, which was quickly completed in his honour after his death.
“He wanted it to be a fellowship of serious scholars committed to solid and serious work for the benefit of mankind,” says Peter Francis, the warden of the library, which is a charity. “It is one of those quirky British institutions. It is remarkable that it survives. We want people to come with fairly serious intent. We want them to mix with other disciplines. We want it to be affordable and we want people to share their bits of truth over a meal or a gin and tonic.”
That may sound intimidating but St Deiniol’s wears its learnedness lightly. The most intimidating thing is the portraits of Gladstone that watch you from every wall. Each one seems a reproach: why aren’t you using your life more productively? Most guests here are clergy and academics who come to study or write, but St Deiniol’s is open to anyone and caters for wannabe writers, American tourists and ordinary holidaymakers. Football and racing fans on their way to Liverpool and Aintree have even been known to book a room as a cheap base for matches. There are comfortable en suite rooms, as well as more austere but sweet bedrooms under the eaves, and it is certainly a bargain, particularly if you are on your own, as the rates do not discriminate against single people, unlike so much tourist accommodation in Britain.
The library is situated along one wing. It is an enchanting chamber, the size of a chapel, panelled in wood with tiny stairs twisting to a magical first-floor gallery. It looks like Hollywood’s idea of an ancient library and yet it is a humble, working building with an authentic aroma of polish, leather and the slightly damp whiff of old tomes.
Thanks to charitable donations, the librarians add £25,000 worth of new titles each year, and have amassed 250,000 books, with a particular focus on the Gladstonian subjects of theology and Victorian studies. Every book is catalogued according to a system devised by Gladstone, who was a nerdy advocate of three-sided shelves and also came up with the space-saving brainwave of sliding stacks in libraries, which he first suggested to the Bodleian in Oxford.
If you stay at St Deiniol’s, you can work in the library from 8am to 10pm and take any of the books back to your room. I start by browsing. Gladstone’s own books in the collection tend to be annotated, with the scrawl of “surely quite wrong” next to a treatise on Irish politics. At random, I pick out some titles: On God and Dogs, Biblical Hermeneutics and The Way of the Black Messiah, ignoring an intriguing volume entitled Christian Erotica and the Movies.
Before supper is served in the communal canteen, I stroll to the sumptuous Victorian drawing room, which has a log fire, squeaky wooden floors, leather armchairs, shelves of more homely popular books and Gladstonian memorabilia such as his pencil case and pen wiper.
The canteen meals are tasty, with lots of salads, soups and healthy if fairly basic fare such as vegetarian lasagne and fish pie. Other guests are chatty, but you are left in solitude if you seek it. I spend all my time writing in the library. It is brilliant. If you can avoid the distraction of the free wireless and the TV room (mercifully there are no TV sets in your room), then the books, that library smell and those stern pictures of Gladstone stimulate tremendous productivity. Later on, I stroll around the grounds and walk through the village to the castle that was Gladstone’s family home, where his great-great-grandson still lives.
Before I arrived, I was slightly bothered by the religious side to St Deiniol’s. I don’t, at the moment, do God. Never for a moment, however, did the faith of other guests or the institution feel oppressive. St Deiniol’s is as liberal as it is Christian, and is committed to Gladstonian ideals of human rights, inclusiveness and dialogue between faiths. As part of the 200th anniversary of Gladstone’s death this year, it is building an Islamic studies reading room and is actively encouraging dialogue between Islam and Christianity.
There are activities, if you seek them: the library runs special holidays, so you can study Celtic Christianity and tour holy sites in Wales for a week, and in September it will host a Gladstone festival, with a performance by the harpist Catrin Finch. But St Deiniol’s is perfect if you seek nothing other than peace. Its books and sense of history were a blissful, secular balm. If you visit, all I would say – in a stern librarian’s whisper – is shhhhh! This place is truly special. Please don’t spoil it.
• St Deiniol’s Library, Church Lane, Hawarden, Flintshire (01244 532 350, st-deiniols.com), £45 per person per night for DB&B (£35 for clergy, £30 for students; £12 supplement for en suite)
Literature
The Word Travels deals in “adventures in the literary landscape”, offering guided tours of the Shires described by the country’s top scribes. The trail of “The Rimbaud of Cwmdonkin Drive” takes in Dylan Thomas’s south Wales, also available are Northamptonshire through the eyes of the peasant poet John Clare, literary Lyme Regis and, naturally, Hardy’s Dorset and Wordsworth’s Lake District. Tours include guides and talks, accommodation in characterful hotels and walks and are available as group or private trips, with tailormade options.
• From £275pp for two nights including transport, accommodation and some meals. 01305 755 608, thewordtravels.com
History
Hold on to your heads! Tudor Monarchs including Henry VIII are apparently “brought back to life” on Tudor Tours holidays. On these small group tours taking in Tudor houses (some private) and sites in Oxford, Stratford-upon-Avon and the Cotswolds, you’re guided by a historian. Accommodation is in a choice of old coaching inns, such as the Villiers Hotel in Buckingham, meals are arranged in old inns or museum/stately home restaurants.
• £750 for six nights B&B, tours, entry fees, transport and guiding. 01296 689 139, tudortours.com
Education
Cambridge University is hosting an open weekend on 11-13 September, when visitors can explore the old college gardens, buildings and art works for free, take guided tours and access archives that are rarely available for public view. There’s an architecture tour of Corpus Christi, tours of the art collection in the Homerton College Buildings and Jesus College Sculpture Collection, which includes work by Antony Gormley and Eduardo Paolozzi. Plus access to the Scott Polar Research Institute Library and St John’s College Old Library.
• See cam.ac.uk for details and to book free tours
One block, 50 bars and a small mountain of Spanish fast food. Norman Miller loosens his belt for a gourmet tour of Logroño
An Andalucían would say Granada, or possibly Seville. Proud, food-obsessed Basques would choose San Sebastián, no question. And Madrileños, well … they think the capital has the best of everything – from food to football.
While tapas are ubiquitous in Spain, the question of who serves up the best is divisive. Granada, the spiritual home of the tapa, has a good shout, and it’s also one of the few places where they are still offered free with a drink. Seville probably has the most atmospheric old bars, but not the best tapas, while San Sebastian’s elaborate pintxos, as they’re called in Basque, are delicious works of art.
But my vote goes to Logroño, the untouristy capital of La Rioja, for the sheer concentration of tapas bars in its medieval old town. Almost 50 are crammed into a single block about the size of four tennis courts. I counted 24 in 100 steps along Calle del Laurel, 13 in 50 paces along Travesía del Laurel. Calle San Agustin and Calle Albornoz complete the circuit with a dozen more. Hemingway treated his taste buds here during his Iberian travels, while King Juan Carlos has given them his royal seal of approval.
This concentration grew from old wine shops (envas) that once sold Rioja’s wine in these narrow medieval streets. The wine business has now shifted to nearby Haro, whose historic centre has a tiny tapas circuit of its own known as “The Horseshoe”.
With so many bars in so little space you might expect fierce competition, but Logroño, on the river Ebro and a stop-off point for pilgrims en route to Santiago de Compostela, has worked out a simple solution – each bar specialises in just two or three dishes. “There are no rivals here,” says Lourdes Sainz, as I start a lunchtime progress along Travesia del Laurel at her brightly-coloured Bar Lorenzo, mingling with blokes on a booze-and-a-bite warm-up for a long Spanish lunch.
Lorenzo majors on simply grilled chistorra (chorizo with sweet paprika and garlic) alongside succulent lamb kebabs doused in a secret sauce full of contrasting sweet and sharp notes. The recipe, Lourdes explains, came from her husband’s grandmother in lieu of a more typical inheritance: “There’s no money in the will, just the sauce. That is your future.” A brisk flow of punters testifies to its appeal.
Next door, Bar Soriano specialises in setas – wild mushrooms cooked in garlicky butter then skewered with a shrimp. Opposite, La Aldea is a shellfish paradise – razor clams (navajas) cooked to sweet perfection, juicy clams (almejas) washed down with a copa of bone-dry Barbadillo. Halfway along Calle Laurel, the wood-beamed La Tasca del Pato offers white asparagus grilled with a wrap of Riojan cheese, and txangurrito – a fishcake of crab and shellfish with a rich béchamel.
The source of all this produce is the Mercado de San Blas (eabastos.com), a modernist edifice whose two floors are testament to the Riojan larder – earthy ceps foraged from wooded hills, broad beans bulging in glistening pods, hot peppers, gleaming fresh fish.
The meat counters push the concept of nose-to-tail eating to extremes – I’m secretly relieved that veal snout (morro de ternera), traditionally stewed with tripe, onion, garlic and chorizo, and skinned pig’s face (careta de cerdo) are both niche, home-cooked specialities I never got to try.
I do, however, get to taste embuchados – coiled lamb intestines – at En Ascuas (0034 941 246 867, Calle Hermanos Moroy 22), a crisp-linened restaurant famed for meat cooked in a giant, wood-fired oven. They are paired with a parsley and garlic sauce and I tuck in happily while watching the oven flames leap behind a glass panel.
Once, locals regularly cooked over outdoor barbecues of burning vine branches – a throwback I witness the next day at Bodegas Puelles (+941 334 415, bodegaspuelles.com), an organic vineyard about 30 minutes’ drive from Logroño in Abalos. The air quivers with summer heat as I wind up through rocky foothills dotted by chozos, bee-hive shaped stone storage buildings.
Greeted by the owner, Jesús Puelles, we wander to the edge of a vineyard where vines sweep down into a lush valley. A pile of tindery branches towers above plates of lamb and sausages that are soon sizzling over the burning vines to provide a succulently rustic lunch on a cool patio, complemented by wines from the hillside where we’d cooked.
I while away another afternoon exploring Logroño’s ancient core, sandwiched between the green spaces of the riverside Parque del Ebro and the tree-filled Paseo Del Espolón. The main street, Calle Portales, is lined with cafes and old-fashioned shops while, in the wide Plaza Del Mercado, I crane my neck to take in the magnificent 16th-century cathedral.
As well as ancient churches to please the pilgrims, Logroño has its share of cultural succour, too. Classical art stars at the Museo de La Rioja, housed in an 18th-century palace on Plaza de San Agustín, and is sharply contrasted by the Würth Museum, a striking contemporary art showcase that is only a few miles out of town in Agoncillo (served by free buses from Glorieta del Doctor Zubía).
On my final evening, I take in a show of Italian photography at the Sala Amos Salvador before returning to the tapas trail. At Pata Negra there’s more art – a mural of bucolic pigs facing a bar where staff bellow orders for plates of meltingly rich acorn-fed iberico.
The streets are louder and busier, the crowd more diverse. Drawn by the sight of a huge octopus, I dive into La Universidad to wolf down paprika-smeared pulpo a la gallega (boiled Galician octopus) alongside chipirones (baby squid) while eavesdropping on some pilgrims.
“Where are you going tomorrow?”
“I’m starting a two-day walk.”
“Only two days?!”
I give thanks that I’m on my trail rather than theirs, and move on to Calle San Agustín. In El Soldado de Tudelilla, the guingillas (fiery green peppers) are so hot I swear the air shimmers in front of me as I quickly order some cooling Asturian cider, which the barman pours from on high while greeting new arrivals with a cheery, “Hola, chicos!”
At Bodeguilla Los Rotos, I encounter gulas, which are delicious elver look-alikes made with white fish (real eels are too scarce) and served with creamy scrambled eggs. I mourn the eels’ fate over a glass of vermouth, while plucking tiny caracolillos (sea snails) from their shells with a pin.
My evening ends in Bar Sebas on Calle Albornoz where, assuming “sheep’s ear” to be a euphemism for something scrumptious, I find myself biting into crunchy ovine cartilage. The man beside me watches with amusement as I try to clear the plate nonchalantly, then asks if I’ve been around many of the bars.
“A lot, but not all,” I tell him. He nods and tells me of the local nickname for the circuit. “We call it La Senda de los Elefantes – the Trail of the Elephants,” he laughs, “because of the way people walk if they’ve done all the bars.” I thank him, then finish my drink and stagger into the warm summer night.
• Iberia (0870 609 0500, iberia.com) flies from London to Logroño via Madrid or Barcelona, from £231 return including tax. Hotel Husa Gran Vía (00 34 941 28 78 50, hotelhusagranvia.com) has doubles from €80 per night. Further information from the Spanish Tourist Office: 020 7486 8077, spain.info/uk
With the exception of Guardian Travel Award winner Under the Thatch (specialist subject: online Welsh cottage rental), I don’t think I have come across another website that has made me hyperventilate with excitement as much as Coastal Retreats has. The Newcastle-based cottage company, set up in 2001, has a portfolio of 29 properties in England’s most northerly county.
Clear, sharp images show a wealth of fresh paintwork, restful interiors or cheerful colours that shout “holiday”, and the occasional nautical flourish (telescope here, lifebuoy on a wall there). There are videos with a soundtrack. Why is a site such as this still the exception, not the rule?
With such a small selection, the properties get heavily booked. My first two choices are unavailable, so we end up with a flat overlooking the Heritage Coast in Seahouses. Not sure I wanted urban style in what an estate agent would call a “prestige development” (bizarrely named The Viking), and Seahouses isn’t the most picturesque spot on this coastline either.
The Viking is set back off the main thoroughfare. Opposite is a caravan park, from where we have to pick up the keys. The man in the office comes over to show us the ropes. Just as well – there is a system of remote-control zappers to get the car through automated double gates, to open and close the pedestrian gate, to activate the garage door. If I’d known about all the security before I set off I’d have brought the Maserati.
No need for the lift, we’re only on the first floor. Here’s Bluegrass, or “14″ as it says on the door. Ooh – what a sense of space and light. The sitting room is open-plan to a kitchen, and has a balcony. It’s flanked by an adjacent block (so a partial sea view), but since the exterior of that is painted blue, it fools us into thinking we’re in the Med. Clever. Then we slide open the door and the scent of fish and chips wafts by.
“Neat kitchen,” says my bloke, stepping back inside. “Those are soft-close,” he muses about the drawers, as he pulls out Thermos flasks, plastic food boxes and other thoughtful picnic paraphernalia.
Against a pink “feature” wall stands a linen sofa with candy-stripe cushions. We have a circular white dining table and chairs tied with jolly red seat cushions. A unit houses a flat-screen telly (must be our satellite dish outside), DVD player and a photo of crashing surf – like the Old Spice ad.
One bedroom is a good size with its own bathroom; the other, beside a shower room off the hall, is smaller. Toiletries (nice addition) by Thalgo continue the seaside theme – it’s a range based on extracts of marine algae. Neither bedroom has a view to speak of, but the location means we can be down on the harbour or beach in minutes.
Seahouses seems slightly forgotten, a gateway for exploring rather than a destination. Don’t think I’d want a week here. Inside Bluegrass, however, is a dream pied-à-terre. “Posh beach hut,” says my bloke. For once, he’s having the last word.
Top tip Pre-order meals for arrival from foodlocalfood.com, but then get everything – breakfast, lunch and souvenirs for the freezer – from Swallow Fish (01665 721052, swallowfish.co.uk), the last 19th-century smokehouse in town, at 2 South Street.
• Bluegrass sleeps four; from 28 Aug-1 Oct, three-night weekend break £599, one week £715. Includes access to Ocean Leisure Club (gym, spa and beauty/therapy centre) across the road and discounts on Farne Islands boat trips – inquire on arrival
Laid-back Marseillan can’t claim to have the celeb clientele, glam bars and designer shops of its famous Riviera cousin, but that’s why it’s special
Sex-kitten starlets are thin on the sun-seared ground. So are €6,000 cotton beach dresses with Mongolian fur trim, Lamborghini Gallardos ostentatiously parked in front of harbourside cafes, and gin-palace superyachts. And you certainly won’t see estate agents with details of stratospherically pricey villas in French, English and Russian.
Yet the petite port of Marseillan on the Languedoc coast, kissing a Mediterranean lagoon east of Béziers, has an undeniable frisson of St Tropez. Not the 2009 Riviera honeypot oozing bling, Eurotrash and traffic, but the serene isolated fishing village that first attracted artists and writers in the late 19th century, and then Bardot and the jet set in the 1950s.
As elsewhere in the south of France, looks count. While no doppelgänger, Marseillan shares strands of scenic DNA with its more famous Côte d’Azur counterpart. The views across its dazzling turquoise water to the hillside rooftops of Sète are reminiscent of St Tropez’s to Grimaud and Sainte-Maxime. And both ports have excellent beaches a couple of miles outside town – although you’ve far less chance of being hit by a wayward Cristal cork around Marseillan plage.
But it’s the town’s protected 17th-century harbour that really captures the early Riviera vibe. Low-level houses laced with wrought-iron balconies and splattered with flowers swaddle a channel that jiggles with small boats and yachts, with a left bank of thriving restaurants and cafes.
And now unpretentious, laid-back Marseillan has some seriously stylish new accommodation. Port Rive Gauche, a converted 19th-century wine storehouse (booming trade spawned several monumental cellars near the waterfront) has two-bedroom apartments with balconies and terraces bombarded with startling lagoon light – all whites and light greys with beams, limed wood floors, and artfully distressed furniture. The little touches – antique dressmakers’ dummies to hang clothes, old trunks and French words spelt out in jumbo metallic letters – are guaranteed to induce serious interior design envy.
So far, so chic. But despite its cool contemporary mood, the development – the only hotel near the harbour – seems to slip easily into Marseillan life. It doesn’t appear to be an early sign of St Tropez-isation. The port’s holiday trump card, after all, is its low-key charm and authentic local activities. It’s why I found myself on the water with Jean-Claude Caumil. The ludicrously healthy retiree offers boat rides around the Bassin de Thau but shows little evidence of brutal commercialisation. His afternoon trip costs just €8pp.
It wasn’t just excellent value, it was also fascinating. The massive lagoon has more than 700 Mediterranean species, including seahorses, and lies at the eastern end of the Canal du Midi, the 240km Unesco world heritage site.
“Do you want Toulouse or Bordeaux?” asked Jean-Claude, as we dissected its narrow entrance, nosing alongside the abandoned rusting hull of the Louisdaky from Cape Town.
Like the best travel, it’s the quirky surprises, rather than the well-known show-stoppers, that hit the high notes. After passing the famed Les Glénans sailing club, where you ring a bell to summon a water taxi across the canal, Jean-Claude turned back to the lagoon, floored the engine and made a gesture of an elderly jockey whipping a horse. We bounced across the water like a giant Space Hopper, windsurfers and kitesurfers trailing in our wake.
After anchoring we spear-fished – I’ve never seen dorado laugh quite so brazenly – and snorkelled in crystal-clear shallows through waving seagrass. But best of all we simply slumped in the boat, let the sun freckle our faces and talked about nothing and everything. “I miss some things about work,” mused Jean-Claude, who swapped his nearby hotel for 364 days a year on the water. “It had a nightclub and 250-cover restaurant. But it’s good to relax.”
He appears to have it nailed. And he’s not alone. Locals around Marseillan have turned relaxation, lubricated with decent wine and fresh seafood, into an art form. A few hours later, I’m outside a white-walled, red-roofed chateau, sipping rosé and shooting the breeze with the owners, Pierre and Marie-Christine Fabre de Roussac. Tucked into magnificent towering trees, Domaine de la Bellonette is one of several grand estates lining the Bassin’s north shore.
It offers spacious rooms with period furniture and a recently converted studio, but I was there for a major foodie treat: the local speciality of brazucade – a mussel barbecue with shellfish straight out of the briny.
In the past, when fennel was as common as nettles, chefs would cover the crustaceans with a generous blanket of the herb, before torching it to generate a steaming scented infusion. When the shells popped, it was job done. Ours was a tad more mainstream, with mussels cooked over glowing wood embers, but it still beat the hell out of burgers and chicken wings, particularly with its side-serving of zingingly fresh oysters. “I once made a 12m-long brazucade,” said Pierre, casually opening another Languedoc wine. “It was no particular occasion. Just pleasure. Why not? We are French. We are Gaulois.”
And also, Pierre, because you don’t have to cook on a £20 B&Q barbie. But it’s hard to disagree with the south-west joie de vivre. A couple more wines and I was seriously considering relocating.
Spend any time in Marseillan and you’re constantly pulled back to the Bassin de Thau. All life swirls around, on or underneath it.
It’s why I headed east along the shore to Medi Thau. It sounds like a centre for genetic engineering. And in a sense it is – only for oysters, not humans. The family firm has revolutionised the farming of the acclaimed crustaceans that thrive on the lagoon’s phytoplankton.
Instead of submerging them on ropes for 12-18 months’ growth, Medi Thau’s solar-powered lifts regularly pull them out of the briny for hours, sometimes days, at a time. The result is that, rather than endlessly gorging, the critters are forced to keep their mouths closed to retain water – a mini workout.
“We make them suffer a little,” says fisherman and directeur général Florent Tarbouriech, as we cruise around the sun-dappled oyster beds. “It makes them stronger, more muscular, more fleshy.”
The tubby, plump beauties are up to 17% bigger than normal, fit to grace dining tables in Venice, Hong Kong and Shanghai. They also have a suntan: exposure to ultra-violet rays gives the shells a delicate rose blush and the name Pink Diamond.
But in Marseillan you don’t need to splash a second mortgage at a flash restaurant. Medi Thau serves the super-sized aphrodisiacs in its straw-roofed shack, dripping with geraniums and surrounded by old fishing nets. The Pink Diamonds are extraordinary, more like steaks than oysters, with an addictive sweet aftertaste.
“All this just by lifting them out of the water,” says Florent, as he prizes open another fleshy specimen. “C’est trés jolie. C’est incroyable.” Which, worryingly, is exactly what director Roger Vadim and many others said about Brigitte Bardot in her 1950s St Tropez heyday.
But while Pink Diamonds are another recent development guaranteed to put Marseillan on the food and travel map, the small port seems more than capable of retaining its unhurried, sunny, bling-free charm.
• London to Montpelier by train costs from £109pp with Rail Europe (0844 8484064, raileurope.co.uk). Avis (08445 818181, avis.co.uk) offers seven days’ car hire from £242. Port Rive Gauche (0871 2187066, garrigaeresorts.com/rive-gauche) has four-person, two-bedroom suites from €130 per night B&B and €315 for three nights (single nights not available until September). It can arrange afternoon boat trips for €8pp, and a boat ride, oyster tasting and brazucade at Medi Thau for €50pp. Domain de la Bellonette (0033 61304 4150, labellonette.com), doubles from €90 B&B