Hotel de Toiras

A small hotel on the harbor in Saint-Martin-de-Ré, the kind of port town that Parisians treat as their open secret. The rooms are named for local historical figures and decorated in a style that's traditional without being precious about it. There's a clubby drawing room, a bar, and a seafood restaurant. The atmosphere does the heavy lifting here, and Saint-Martin obliges with a harbor and a town that feel genuinely unhurried.