The Vendée Breton Marshes
The Vendée Breton Marshes stretch from the Bay of Bourgneuf to St Gilles Croix-de-Vie, covering an area of 20,000 hectares below a string of dunes. A sanctuary for thousands of water birds and wildfowl, the saltmarsh offers a fantastic spectacle. Canals and channels cross green fields and saltmarshes on which horses, marshland cows and sheep are raised.
Out of the ordinary: small, low-built farms (for wind protection) with whitewashed walls and reed roofs, typical of the Vendée Breton Marshes and known as bourrines. Beauvoir-sur-Mer is the gateway to the islands: Yeu with the heliport and Noirmoutier via the Gois causeway.
Once an «isle in the sea» in the Bay of Bourgneuf, and now «an isle in the land», Bouin became anchored to the continent as a result of long geological mutations.
This village is now protected by an arrangement of dikes and polders that is unique in France. It was in these well-sheltered waters that oyster-farming gradually developed (Vendée Atlantique Label). Four dry harbours installed in the estuaries are still active, including the Port du Bec, known as the «Chinese Port» (because the wooden pontoons are on stilts), which is a listed site.
