Jean-Christophe Benoist, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Noirmoutier-en-l'Île
The main town of the island of the same name, Noirmoutier-en-l'Île gathers around its round-towered medieval castle and Romanesque church most of the heritage of this low-lying island set between ocean and salt marshes. Lanes lined with white houses with colourful shutters, filled in summer with the scent of hydrangeas and fig trees, lead to the marina and the former oyster sheds, now converted. Around the town, the salt marshes have shaped a characteristic landscape for centuries, where salt is still harvested by traditional methods, while the famous Passage du Gois, submerged at high tide, links the island to the mainland at a rhythm dictated by the tides. Also linked by a bridge since 1971, the island has kept, thanks to this relative isolation, an unspoilt charm, between fishing, oyster farming and seaside tourism.
