Vendee: Atlantic Coast, Puy du Fou, and Revolutionary Memory
Vendee occupies the Atlantic coast south of the Loire estuary. The department is famous for two things above all: the Vendee uprising during the French Revolution, a royalist and Catholic rebellion that was brutally suppressed, and the Vendee Globe, the solo non-stop round-the-world sailing race that starts from Les Sables-d'Olonne every four years. The coastline draws millions of summer tourists to resorts like Saint-Jean-de-Monts and the island of Noirmoutier.
The Puy du Fou theme park, near Les Epesses, has grown into one of Europe's most visited attractions with elaborate historical spectacles and no roller coasters. The population exceeds 700,000 and has been growing, unusual for a rural French department. La Roche-sur-Yon, the prefecture, was rebuilt on a grid plan by Napoleon in 1804. The bocage landscape of hedgerows and small fields in the interior contrasts with the flat marshlands of the Marais Poitevin.
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Vendee occupies the Atlantic coast south of the Loire estuary. The department is famous for two things above all: the Vendee uprising during the French Revolution, a royalist and Catholic rebellion that was brutally suppressed, and the Vendee Globe, the solo non-stop round-the-world sailing race that starts from Les Sables-d'Olonne every four years. The coastline draws millions of summer tourists to resorts like Saint-Jean-de-Monts and the island of Noirmoutier.
The Puy du Fou theme park, near Les Epesses, has grown into one of Europe's most visited attractions with elaborate historical spectacles and no roller coasters. The population exceeds 700,000 and has been growing, unusual for a rural French department. La Roche-sur-Yon, the prefecture, was rebuilt on a grid plan by Napoleon in 1804. The bocage landscape of hedgerows and small fields in the interior contrasts with the flat marshlands of the Marais Poitevin.
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