The department of the Vendée, which is classed as the third place for tourism in France with the capacity of catering for an estimated 700,000 visitors, offers both the attraction of its coast with its vast beaches of white sand, sprinkled with holiday resorts and fishing ports, and the charm of its hinterland where the landscape is dominated by hedgerows and where the hills are still sometimes crowned by windmills. In both the north west and the south, sheltered by the dunes, stretch the marshes, the Marais breton vendéen and the Marais poitevin, slowly dried out throughout the course of the centuries, where vast denuded spaces precede the mazes of hedges and canals, real ecological paradises.
Everywhere, a magnificent architectural heritage, either preserved or restored, bears witness to the richness of the past, from the dolmens of prehistory to the tragic time of the wars of the Vendée.
Visitor and holiday maker alike are offered twelve carefully studied itineraries in this guide, to enable them to discover the artistic and natural riches of the Vendée where tradition and modernity, authentic rurality and the strong imprint of the sea can be found side by side.