The Vendée Bocage
The Vendée Bocage
To the north of the Vendée department is a hilly landscape of fields and pastures, enclosed by banks bearing hedges or rows of trees. This mosaic of cultivation and grassland, punctuated by coloured hedges separating hamlets and isolated farms, underlines the rural character of a countryside that is organised around small towns. From upper to lower Bocage, the course of the river Sèvre Nantaise is lined with chateaux, medieval fortresses, mills and natural parks. This a land of religion, the land of the 18th-century Vendée Wars, a land of wonderment, with meandering roads between villages and ancient houses. Rambling pathways weave through a wilderness that is preserved for the pleasure of walkers who are hungry for a breath of fresh air.
The flat grasslands
The flat farming country is a vast cereal-producing expanse of fields that stretch as far as the eye can see and in which any vertical intrusion seems to leap up into view. This is a land that has retained its own true character.
From Luçon, an old episcopal seat where Richelieu once lived, to Fontenay-le-Comte, a Renaissance town that was formerly the capital of the Bas-Poitou, the visitor can discover the traditional old farmsteads built of limestone and with gently sloping roofs of pantiles known locally as «tiges de botte».
