Touring Noirmoutier Island and the general vicinity, Vendee, France

• Report rights infringement
• published: 05 Aug 2016
• views: 187

On a previous holiday to the Vendee Coast, staying further south, near St-dean-de-Monts, we made a day trip to Noirmoutier Island specifically to visit Sealand Aquarium, Ile aux Papillons (butterfly farm) and Mini Ville (miniature village); the last two having made videos uploaded to my Channel on YouTube; and on another occasion visited Challans during their annual Challans 1910 Theme day, which I also filmed and which was a fantastic day out. We enjoyed our visit to the Challans 1910 event so much that we decided to book a holiday cottage in the general region specifically so that we could return during their annual celebrations and spend the rest of the week relaxing on the local beaches and exploring other tourist attractions on Noirmoutier Island and the surrounding area; so this video gives highlights of some of the local beaches and tourist attractions in the vicinity of Noirmoutier Island, visited while on our summer holiday in the Vendee, southern France. We booked a holiday through TripAdvisor for a holiday cottage at Bouin, in the Vendee, France. A renovated farmhouse, which was fabulous (first rate), situated in the Breton-Vendee marshes between Porniic and Noirmoutier; the couple we rented the cottage from only speak French and we only speak English, but that didn’t matter as we were able to communicate with each other well enough, a few gestures and the odd word in the other persons language goes a long way to understanding. On navigating to the Island (Noirmoutier) we found our TomTom useless as it always wanted to take us across the original road to the island, which Is flooded by the sea most of the time and only passable for three hours a day during low tide; in spite of the fact that there is a nice new bridge to the island well above sea level. Even when right next to the bridge (which our TomTom can see) the sat-nav insists on taking us to the other part of the island to try to cross the impassable road. Out of curiosity we did make a visit to this road crossing from both ends (from the island and from the mainland), from the island side it’s just salt marshes, but from the mainland side there’s several cafes and parking, and we spent a couple of hours here just watching the French queue to get across once the tide was low enough to make the several mile journey across the sea to the island. During that time a couple of cars came in the opposite direction; but mainly I think the French only cross for the experience (a novelty), and a sense of ‘I’ve been there and I done that’. Once on the island I would suspect most would choose to use the proper bridge for getting back to the mainland. In the event of any one chancing their luck after the tide has turned and their car being caught in the rising tide there are safety pillars at regular intervals along the road where drivers and passengers can abandon their cars and climb up to await rescue by boat. As well as sightseeing, during our week’s holiday we spent a day at Challans for their annual 1910 event, and a few days sunbathing on the gorgeous beaches in the region. The beaches we frequented that week were almost exclusively Plage Grande Cote (beach of the grand coast) and Plage Bergere; beaches of La Barre de Monts, Fromentine (the local seaside resort town across the other side of the bridge from Noirmoutier. For day trips we visited Kulmino, Notre-Dame-de-Monts in the morning (a converted water tower) that gives a superb 360 degree panoramic view of the surrounding countryside, and in the afternoon Moulin de Raire, near Sallertaine, a working windmill that has been in continuous operation since 1555 and still mill flour to this day. After leaving the converted water tower we had intended to spend the afternoon visiting Abbaye et Musee de L’ile Chauvet but when we arrived the two elderly people at the reception desk (a table at the end of the path from the carpark) gave us and all the other visitors queuing a frosty reception so we all just turned around and walked away; and instead we headed for the windmill; which turned out to be a real gem. Background soundtrack, license free music Trekking, Euro Adventure and Travel Atmospheres, Warmth; automatically generated by ScoreFitter in Pinnacle Studio.