Green Venice by boat
Between Coulon, Arçais and Maillezais, the Marais poitevin, nicknamed Green Venice, slips beneath the green vaults of trimmed ash trees. You board a flat-bottomed boat with a boatman who knows every nook, every eel, every anecdote. The silence of the water, the sunbeams filtering through: hard to dream of a better first date.
Luçon, Fontenay-le-Comte and Nieul
Luçon, Richelieu’s former town, lines up its elegant cathedral and the Dumaine gardens. Fontenay-le-Comte, labelled a Town of Art and History, charms with its Renaissance mansions and the Quatre-Tias fountain. In Nieul-sur-l’Autise, the Romanesque abbey and Eleanor of Aquitaine’s house recall a refined Middle Ages. Three towns to explore unhurriedly.
Vouvant, Mervent and the high bocage
Listed among the most beautiful villages of France, Vouvant is also a village of painters: sloping lanes, ramparts and the Melusine tower. Beside it, the state forest of Mervent-Vouvant, the department’s largest, shelters a lake and forest paths. On Lyad, members from the Vendée share their favourites in the south; it is up to you to find someone to push the door open with.
Date ideas
- Marais poitevin
- Coulon
- Maillezais
- Luçon
- Fontenay-le-Comte
- Vouvant
- Mervent
- Nieul-sur-l’Autise
