Coast with the most
The Vendee, a long overlooked coastal region in western France, is now a centre for food, relaxation and wellness, finds Bernadette Fallon
Wellness and good food in France’s Vendee region
We’re halfway across a busy roundabout in the French coastal town of Les Gilles, six of us on bikes, happily cycling along in bright sunshine. Cars have stopped to let us through, some motorists waving lazily from rolled-down windows as I wobble past at the back, my 28-year break from cycling not conducive to confidence (I’ve already fallen off once in the car park). I try to imagine a similar scenario back in the UK but all I can see are irate motorists trying to swerve me off the road and fists shaking out windows as they roar past in a cloud of aggressive exhaust fumes.
Here on the Atlantic coast in the Vendee region, the pace of life is quieter, gentler, more relaxed. The area is gradually being recognised as a wellness destination, a blend of relaxing as well as more energetic pursuits, where food and drink are easily traced back to their natural sources. Yesterday at the Curé Nantais artisan cheese factory, established in 1880, the manager explained they could ramp up production and export their products, but why go through the stress of all that extra work?
The milk used to make this cheese comes from local cows and arrives at the plant just two hours after the cows have produced it. Regular tours run daily, and the on-site shop is stocked with a tempting selection of cheeses and other local produce.
This morning we cycled out to the Marais de l’etoile salt marshes, where salt from the sea is collected using a process devised by local monks over 1,200 years ago. The sparkling white crystals of the top layer – known as the Fleur de Sel – are used as table salt while the “grey salt” underneath, packed with nutrients, is used for cooking. Both types, fresh from the marshes, are sold widely from artisan food shops in the area.
Seaweed is also collected in the region, harvested from the sea and grown in special tanks of purified sea water. If you visit the seaweed plant at La Ferme Marine du Croisic they’ll let you taste it. Or go one better – book a cookery class and they’ll cook it up for you. We ate sea lettuce and red dilsk, kelp and sea spaghetti on our visit. Packed with nutrients and minerals, it tasted like eating the sea.
Sardines are another local delicacy and earlier this morning we watched queues of people lining up at Les Gilles pier to buy fresh sardines from the boats returning with their early morning catch. About 50 seagulls also queued up overhead, watching for any overboard treats. (These seagulls have seriously glossy coats.)
There’s a market nearby where trade customers do their shopping at 5am. Thirty per cent of the day’s catch is sold fresh to local shops and restaurants, while 70 per cent is sent for canning and ends up in beautifully designed, retro-style cans in shops all over the region. Nothing travels very far here, most of what is produced in the region stays in the region. Why send all of that goodness away?
For lunch we cycled to the Le Banc des Sardines on the pier, a small blue food truck selling three daytime dishes. Sardine pâté, fresh sardines with potatoes and a cake plate made an excellent starter, main course and dessert.
And for our final excursion of the day we cycled to La Grande Plage,
Nothing travels very far, most of what is produced in the region stays in the region
3km of golden beach, for a longe-côte experience which roughly translates as “sea hiking”. It’s a new trend in the region, with weekly sessions led by the bubbly Chloe, who takes small groups out into chest-high water for sea walking, aqua aerobics and, at the end back on the beach, a short meditation. Imagine a wellness activity in water, that’s pretty much it.
Sadly, I could only imagine it, as the walking stick I use to get around was completely useless for walking on the sea bed. But I did have a paddle in the sea, warm water splashing up to my knees as the setting evening sun bathed the beach in rich golden light. This is a beach where tourists and locals mix, where office workers come at the end of the day and I envy their lifestyle.
These days more of us are searching for some form of wellness in our lives, a more holistic approach to improved health and wellbeing. More of us are practising yoga and meditation, more of us are looking for integrated healthcare practices that treat our entire body, rather than parts in isolation. That might be balancing the working day with time at the beach or – for those of us not lucky enough to live by the sea – finding our own work/life balance.
Ayurveda is one of the world’s oldest holistic healing systems, developed over 3,000 years ago in India, based on the belief that health and wellness depend on a balance between the mind, body and spirit. The Alliance Pornic Resort Hotel Thalasso & Spa in the pretty seaside town of Pornic combines seawater and Ayurvedic treatments. There’s an Ayurvedic menu in the dining room, where fruit is served as the first course followed by mixed leaves and sweet roasted vegetables and the meal ends with salad, which continues to stimulate digestion. Ending with a sugary dessert? A big no-no. Kills digestion, apparently.
Working on the process of identifying your dominant “dosha”, the life forces or energies that drive your body, it’s believed that the health issues you develop are linked to the balance of your doshas. Personalised programmes for guests at the Alliance Pornic match treatment plans with bespoke diets and herbs. The treatments are great – after just 15 minutes experiencing a face massage, I was in a blissful state of near-coma relaxation. Afterwards, lying in the light-drenched Thalasso pool area, the blissed-out relaxing continued.
It’s easy to feel “well” in a region like this. Eating locally produced food at restaurants like Eden Beach at the Hôtel Barrière L’hermitage, with views out to the beaches of La Baule, or in the countryside setting of La Fontaine aux Bretons, with its own kitchen gardens and vineyard, is its own tonic. After our dinner at La Fontaine, we’re led down a cliffside walk to the coast, to see where our fish has come from and the ingenious contraption used to raise it from the sea.
On our last night we dine at the Michelin-starred JM Pérochon at Brétignolles-sur-mer, great food and a wonderful sunset on the beach across the road that sees half the restaurant abandon dinner to run out for a photograph. And early the next morning there’s just time for a tour of the organic Eric Sage vineyard in Brem-sur-mer by horse and carriage, where the wine is produced in harmony with the land and the local flora and fauna. Then we’re back to Nantes airport for the journey home to the UK where maybe, just maybe, I might invest in a bicycle.
Bernadette Fallon is a travel writer and editor; you can read her travel stories at Travellingwell.net
Direct flights from Edinburgh to Nantes run daily; for more information on the region visit Vendee-tourisme.com and Atlanticloire-valley.com