The black and white bell tower, a seamark for sailors, watches over one of the “Plus Beaux Villages de France”, between the harbour and the salt marshes.
At the head of the Fier, Ars-en-Ré lines up its white houses around the two-tone bell tower of Saint-Étienne, painted black and white to guide sailors. Listed among the “Plus Beaux Villages de France”, the village has kept the scale and the grace of a salt workers' harbour.
Houses here are few and far between: merchants' residences around the place Carnot, village houses with hidden courtyards, a handful of properties opening on to the marshes. A discreet market, in which a close knowledge of the properties makes all the difference.
Ars was the salt capital of Ré. From the Middle Ages onwards, Flemish and Scandinavian ships sailed up the Fier to load the white gold, making the fortune of the merchants whose fine houses still stand around the place Carnot.
That prosperity is written into the church of Saint-Étienne, whose spire, repainted black and white, served as a seamark for navigators; it is today one of the most photographed silhouettes on the Atlantic coast. Around the village, the salt workers still keep the marshes alive, carrying on a craft a thousand years old.
A Romanesque nave from the eleventh and twelfth centuries and a Gothic chancel from the fifteenth: its 40-metre black and white bell tower, a historic seamark for sailors, stands over the village and remains the emblem of the whole island.
At the head of the Fier, a peaceful marina where the sailing boats wait for the tide between the huts and the quaysides.
The great landscape of Ars: the salt pans, the crystallising beds and the salt heaps of the salt workers, to be discovered along the cycle paths.
The beating heart of the village, with its market and its terraces, framed by the residences of shipowners and merchants.
The narrowest isthmus on the island, between the ocean and the Fier: a spectacular piece of geography on the doorstep of the village.
Quiet alleyways, limewashed walls, green shutters: Ars distils the architectural essence of Ré.
Life in Ars follows the rhythm of the market on the place Carnot, the regattas on the Fier and bicycle rides through the marshes. In summer the village comes alive with elegance; out of season it returns to a stillness that many regard as the true luxury of the island.
Year-round life is taking firmer hold here, as it is in every village on Ré: shops, a school and the associations of salt workers and sailors keep the village alive well beyond the summer.
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Request a valuationDreaming of a life in Ars-en-Ré? BARNES Île de Ré offers a selection of village houses, character properties and homes facing the salt marshes, in one of the “Plus Beaux Villages de France”, around the famous black and white bell tower… See prices village by village · Our properties for sale in Ars-en-Ré
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