The Poitevin Marshes
Comfortably installed in your mobile home rental near La Tranche-sur-Mer or on your campsite pitch in the Vendée, at the Saint-Michel-en-l’Herm Les Mizottes campsite, you can discover the famous local natural site: the Marais Poitevin.
What to visit in the Marais Poitevin?
In addition to its natural and ecological character, the Marais Poitevin offers a wealth of treasures, sheltered by verdant flora and built over the centuries. Indeed, mindful of the legacy they would leave behind, the monk-builders who created today’s infrastructure chose to bring an economic stake to the site, through the establishment of port areas. Dozens of small harbours have been built in the heart of the traditional villages crossed by the marshes, anchoring the commercial economy and now used as embarkation points for guided river tours.
These Benedictine monks built other majestic superstructures along the banks of the river, such as Maillezais Abbey, with its fantastic ruins that can be seen from the canals.
Emerging from the flatness of the banks of the Marais, the ruins of Saint-Pierre Abbey tower over the surrounding wetlands with their unique, majestic architecture. Situated on a former island of the Pictons and built in the 10ᵉ century by the powerful Duke of Aquitaine Guillaume le Grand (also known as Guillaume Fier-à-Bras, Count of Poitou), it is a privileged witness to the successive wars and battles that have marked the history of the Vendée.
This former fortress, which became an Abbey and then a Cathedral, was entrusted to the Benedictines and was home to many distinguished guests, such as Rabelais, who drew inspiration from it to create the decorations for his books and sketch the features of the buildings evoked in his works under the name of Abbaye de Thélème.
The summer season is the ideal time to come and discover, through live performances, the great characters who have made up its history and made it famous over the centuries.
Not far from La Rochelle, you’ll be perfectly placed to visit this unique site and enjoy a camping vacation with swimming pools at Saint-Michel-en-l’Herm, in the heart of the southern Vendée.
Things to do in the Marais Poitevin
Stretching between the 3 départements of Deux-Sèvres, Vendée and Charente-Maritime, the Marais Poitevin has the particularity of combining a multiplicity of landscapes in its wild expanse, which will undoubtedly delight nature lovers.
The Marais Poitevin is a subtle combination of dry coastal plains and inland wetlands, ideal for both hiking and boating. This unique blend creates a perfect harmony between the calm and freshness of the protected undergrowth and the change of scenery of the dry stretches stretching to the ocean.
Whether you choose to cruise the waterways in a typical rowing boat, or stroll or cycle along the lush green banks of the canals, let yourself be carried through this labyrinth of vegetation, with no less than 4,000 km of navigable paths. Featuring a flora and fauna that’s half aquatic and half plant, a veritable maze of paths and waterways opens up before you, where the willows and poplars along the banks contrast visually with the duckweed covering the surface of the canals.
To help you understand all the subtleties of this typical marsh landscape, we offer guided walks, accompanied by picturesque tales and legends, which invite you to relax and enjoy the exotic.
