The Vendee, a five-hour drive from the ferry ports, is a favourite holiday point for the majority of Irish families who choose France for a camping holiday.
Even if they do not end up there, those travelling further south use the Vendee as a stopping point along the way. It has better sunshine than many points further south, great beaches, and a rapidly developing infrastructure.
New roads have been opened offering escape routes from the coast road which clogs up nicely in July and August as new 'a vendre' apartments crowd out the hundreds of campsites that line this low, flat and friendly, sandy coastline.
It is not by accident that many of the dozens of campsites which straddle this short stretch of coast are called 'Bois' something or other. The trees were planted to protect the sand dunes that grew as the sea retreated, leaving fishing villages like Les Sables d’Olonne, St Hillaire de Riez or St Jean de Monts away from the coastline where their resort suburbs have sprung up today.
At the holiday's end visitors will have a flavour of the flatness of this land, halfway between sea and shore like the Simon and Garfunkel song, and there is something wonderfully homespun about the way that the population scratched a living on marshlands. Many of today’s towns were once islands which could be visited only by boat. For a pleasant afternoon, retrace a circumnavigation of Sallertane by boat.
Challans was once the duck capital of France, from the thousands of ducks reared in the surrounding marshes. Now they have been overtaken by farmed black hen, poulet noir, and the Tuesday market sees an astonishing variety of live poultry on sale. The speciality of the town is duck cooked in Muscadet. People dress in turn of the century costumes for four summertime fairs, which can be great fun. Quail and guinea fowl are cheap and plentiful.
St Jean de Monts is built along 7km of sandy beach with loads of young people engaged in beach activity of all types. The north end of the beach is where the action is and a nearby sea water pool offers Thalassotherapy.
The marshland games in August include such exotic sports as cowpat throwing and canal jumping. The original fishing village is now half a mile inland.
St Hillaire de Riez is one of the premier resorts in the Atlantic Coast and sees its summer population rise to 150,000. It embraces the holiday area of Merlin Page, the marshland village of Notre Dame de Riez, and the cliff-top resort of Sion Sur l’Ocean, looking out at the Cinq Pineaux (Five Pine Cones).
And a tip, head inland, the villages are nicer, the food is cheaper and you get a flavour of village life in the ducklands. For watersport heaven, check out the little town of Apremont nestling under a castle rooted among the few hills to be found in the terrain.
• The main camping operators out of Ireland are Canvas (www.canvasholidays.ie, 01-2421901), French Life (www.frenchlife.ie) and Keycamp (www.keycamp.ie, 021-4252300).
• All of the travel companies offer a landbridge option through England which involves two ferry trips, but it can save €600 off your final price.
• 80% of customers use the landbridge ferry option.
