Marshes and mud flats (and a beach)

We have spent several days a little bit inland from the coast exploring the various marshlands.

The Marais Breton (actually now within the Vendée Département) includes salt marsh which has been the basis of salt production (“white gold”) since Roman times. This is vividly explained at the Le Daviaud museum https://www.ledaviaud.fr/?lang=en which has excellent inside and outside exhibits of the history of the economy and daily life on the marsh. The landscape was beautiful in the very hot sun.

The second photo from this area is the view from our room on the farm we stayed at near Bouin.

Further south the Marais Poitevin is partly drained, resulting in a flat, small-field agricultural landscape (hay and sunflowers). The “wet” part has a network of canals and ditches, with small settlements along them, as well as boggy bits and woodlands making a very pleasant and uncrowded landscape to explore slowly. Even on a rainy day, as in my photo of the port at Le Vanneau.

Further on still, the salt flats around Marennes are dedicated to oyster production. This was our view as we tested the local product, and also tried l’éclade de moules (mussels barbequed on pine needles) which is pretty special.

Nearby, Brouage is a fortified village that established itself as a trading centre for salt and then became a military town in the 15C. It is the birthplace of Champlain, who was instrumental in the “discovery” of French Canada (first through trans-Atlantic expeditions, looking for routes to China, and later in establishing the French colony). This photo is of the surrounding marsh taken from the ramparts.

While it was still hot and sunny we had a day on l’Ile de Noirmoutier and a good swim from a lovely beach-with-beach-huts at Bois de la Chaise; this was my view as I dried off.