{"id":632119,"date":"2026-10-16T05:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T05:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/632119\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T05:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T05:58:13","slug":"wealthy-travelers-are-flocking-to-vendee-frances-little-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/632119\/","title":{"rendered":"Wealthy Travelers Are Flocking to Vend\u00e9e, France’s ‘Little California’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tTwice a day, coming and going with the tide, a 2.5-mile road known as le Passage du Gois<\/a> emerges from beneath the Atlantic Ocean, connecting the west coast of France<\/a> to a petite island south of Nantes. Not even half the square mileage of Nantucket, Noirmoutier-en-l\u2019\u00cele is an idyll the French know very well but Americans may miss, drawn instead to the glitz of Biarritz or St. Tropez. Yet is there anything more exclusive than an island guarded by nature\u2019s bouncers, keeping guests out until low tide?<\/p>\n

\n\tNoirmoutier is one of those quietly decadent destinations that\u2019s low on pretense, high on bounty, where chefs craft three-Michelin-starred meals with seafood from the fish auction across the street and vegetables and herbs from the organic kitchen garden. (Truly: La Marine<\/a>, led by chef Alexandre Couillon, is a hyper-local restaurant that needs no introduction and will start taking reservations for 2027 on November 4\u2014mark your calendars.) Travelers familiar with Scotland\u2019s Isle of Skye may recognize this recipe for remote luxury, though rather than craggy cliffs and emerald-green glens, Noirmoutier is closer to a little slice of California. Here, pine forests meet sand dunes, salt marshes yield a famous hand-harvested sea salt, and well-heeled locals aren\u2019t heeled at all. They\u2019re barefoot and surf bound.<\/p>\n

\n\tHappy hour is oyster hour, particularly in La Gu\u00e9rini\u00e8re, a commune with a rich history of oyster farming. Mathieu and Aur\u00e9lien Gendron, brothers and co-managers of Les Petits Bassets<\/a>, renovated a former oyster hut in the marshes to be a seasonal \u201ctasting cabin,\u201d Le Bouclard<\/a>, where visitors can feast on what\u2019s harvested from April to October (and even tour the oyster farm with their father, Alain). If you visit the island in May, try to time it around the brief but glorious harvest of \u201cLa Bonnotte\u201d potatoes\u2014aka the world\u2019s most expensive potato<\/a>. These tubers have fetched $600 per kilo at auction, growing in three months and yielding a delicate, lemon-y or salty taste.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"A<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tNever go hungry in the Bonhomme oyster port in La Gu\u00e9rini\u00e8re.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSimon Bourcier<\/p>\n

\n\tLongtime Robb Report readers may recognize the name Bois de la Chaise, usually paired with \u201ccontemporary coastal retreat\u201d or \u201cexquisite manor for sale.\u201d This protected pine forest on Noirmoutier\u2019s northeast coast is home to multimillion-euro real estate, many of them second homes of Parisians or les Nantais. Aristocrats built grand villas here in the 19th century, and the Belle \u00c9poque architecture remains, mingling with more modern homes with private beach access. Plage des Dames is a particularly beautiful beach, its historic white wooden beach huts sheltered by oaks. Paparazzi don\u2019t venture here. Instead, families will relax in peace knowing the secret isn\u2019t out on Noirmoutier (until now\u2014sorry).<\/p>\n

\n\tAs temperatures continue to rise in the South of France, more travelers are looking north to the department of Vend\u00e9e, home to Noirmoutier, \u00cele d\u2019Yeu (an even more laid-back, camper-happy island), and roughly 155 miles of windswept coastline. Given how much sunshine the region gets, it has also earned the nickname C\u00f4te de Lumi\u00e8re (Coast of Light), a cheery moniker for a place that hosts the world\u2019s most grueling sailing race<\/a>\u2014the nonstop, single-handed, round-the-world Vend\u00e9e Globe<\/a>, which sets off from Les Sables D\u2019Olonne every four years.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"France,<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tAerial view of St. Gilles Croix de Vie, the sardine capital of France.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tPierre Ollier<\/p>\n

\n\tKitesurfers know the seaside town St. Gilles Croix de Vie as a sublime launch site, while foodies flock here for the sardines. Kid you not: St. Gilles Croix de Vie is a Site Remarquable du Go\u00fbt (Remarkable Site of Taste) and considered the French capital of sardines, with its own spring sardine festival<\/a>; a museum, shop, and tasting room at L\u2019atelier de la Sardine; and a 1.5-mile walking trail (marked with blue sardines) that point out 14 historic and significant sites related to the tiny fish.<\/p>\n

\n\tLest you think sardines will get too big for their can with all that attention, agri-rich Vend\u00e9e is also a place that celebrates flower festivals, chocolate festivals, astronomy festivals\u2014you name it, it gets a festival. Nature is well and fully respected across the region, nowhere more so than the inland marshland dubbed \u201cGreen Venice,\u201d a \u201cmagical maze of canals\u201d (so lovingly depicted by The New York Times<\/a>) shaded by willows and alders \u201clike transepts in a cathedral. Driving across the small bridges, you can catch a glimpse of a lone barge (a yole), gliding flat along a canal, silently swaying, its boatman poking the water with a long paddle (the pigouille), standing upright like a gondolier.\u201d Maybe it\u2019s a little bit of Italy, a little bit of California, and a lot of understated France.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Twice a day, coming and going with the tide, a 2.5-mile road known as le Passage du Gois…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632120,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[273,5071,1221,3096,111,139,69,147,309958,16506],"class_list":["post-632119","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-feature","tag-france","tag-islands","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-vendee-globe","tag-yacht"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632119","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632119"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632119\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632119"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632119"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632119"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}