The
first thing to be noted about "Pays de la Loire" is
that this is not the main area for visiting the famous "Chateaux de la
Loire". They are further upstream.
The Pays de la Loire region is a recent
creation, not one of France's historic regions. Indeed, the regional
capital, Nantes, was once the capital of Brittany - to which it no
longer belongs. In historic terms, Pays de la Loire covers
parts of the old provinces of Brittany, Anjou, Maine and Poitou.
The Pays de la Loire covers the area to
the south of Brittany and Normandy, along the lower stretches of the
river Loire, the longest river in France.
The region is composed of five
departments,
two of them coastal – the Loire Atlantique (44) and the
Vendée (85) – and three of them inland, the
Mayenne (53),
the Sarthe (72) and the Maine et Loire (49).
Nantes
(44), the regional capital is the sixth largest city in France, with
270,000 inhabitants in the urban borough of Nantes, and an estimated
800,000 inhabitants in the urban area as of 2008. It is located on the
Loire, 50 km inland, and is the largest economic hub in the north west
of France. In the eighteenth century, Nantes (like Bristol) was a
flourishing seaport, indeed the most important seaport in France; the
city acquired great wealth at that time, wealth which is reflected to
this day in its urban heritage. Today, most of the shipping activity
has moved to the mouth of the Loire, to the port of
Saint Nazaire,
which is also one of the most important ship-building cities in Europe.
It was in the Saint Nazaire dockyards that the new flagship of the
Cunard line, the world's largest passenger ship, the Queen
Mary 2,
was built. A clear birds-eye view of the shipyards can be had from the
high road bridge that spans the Loire estuary.
On the coast of the Loire Atlantique
department lie two of France's historic seaside resorts,
La Baule and
Le Croisic.
The area round Le Croisic is also famous for its salt pans, and "sel de
Guérande" is one of the best-known types of salt
in France.
The town of
Guérande
is a delightful small ancient walled city, just inland from the salt
marshes.
South of the Loire Atlantique department
lies an area known as
Vendée.
The modern department (85) is much smaller than the historic
area
that once carried this name. Vendée is famous in the history
of
France as one of the old bastions of Protestantism; after the
revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685, and the end of religious
tolerance, tens of thousands of Vendéen protestants fled
from
this part of France, and went to live in England, or America. Thus many
people in England can trace some of their ancestry back to this part of
France.
After the French Revolution,
Vendée was a centre for the royalist counter-revolution.
The department is largely flat in the
northern
coastal area, low-lying and gently undulating inland. The capital, the
city of
La Roche sur Yon,
is a small rural city in the middle of the department. The coast is
built up round the seaside resorts, notably the fine beaches at
les Sables d'Olonne, Saint Gilles
Croix-de-Vie and
St. Jean de Monts,
but elsewhere there are stretches of empty coastline. In
parts, a
band of pine forests, planted on land that was once sand dunes,
protects the flat farmland behind from the Atlantic winds and the sand.
Further inland, the department of
Maine et Loire
(49) covers a territory to the north and south of the Loire. This is the
heart of the region known as Anjou, and its capital
Angers
is one of the great historic cities in the Loire valley. Anjou was the
fief of the Angevines, who, with Henry II, became the kings of England.
The great castle of the counts of Anjou, in Angers, is one of the
biggest medieval fortresses in Europe.
The two remaining departments of this
region,
Sarthe
(72) and
Mayenne
(53)
form the rest of the old provinces of Anjou and Maine, and border on
Normandy. Rural departments, and strongly agricultural, they both
have more in common with Normandy than they do with
Vendée.
Half the population of the department of the Sarthe lives in the urban
area round the capital,
Le
Mans,
famous for its annual motor race. Apart from that, the Sarthe is deeply
rural. La Flèche, an attractive small town on the river Loir
(without an -e !) boasts one of the best and oldest zoos in France,
coverning some 30 acres.
Laval,
capital of
the Mayenne, is a small city with a historic centre. The city is
located on the banks of the river Mayenne, which crosses the department
from north to south, a navigable waterway with opportunities for boat hire, and 85 km of towpath idel
for cyclists and hikers. The department of the Mayenne also boasts the
highest point in the northwest quarter of France, the summit of the
Mont des Avaloirs, at 417 metres, about 1350 ft.
Access: by
train (TGV) from Paris Gare Montparnasse. Access by car from the UK,
via any
of the Channel ports, from Roscoff (Brittany) to Calais.
Main
tourist attractions in
Pays de la Loire
The old quarter in Nantes, the regional capital: almost Parisian.
Les Sables d'Olonne - seaside resort in Vendée. |
- Nantes
(44), Regional capital; Nantes is a big city, with a historic centre;
it offers plenty of opportunities for shopping and urban tourism.
attractions include river boats on the Erdre river, a tributary of the
Loire.
- Les
Sables d'Olonne:
(85) One of the most famous seaside resorts on the west coast. the
Vendée Globe round-the-world yacht race starts
here.
- Guérande
(44), just inland from the coast, to the north of the Loire,
Guérande is a small walled city, with a historic
centre.
- La
Baule (44) - One of the more famous French seaside resorts
- famous since the nineteenth century .
- Le
Puy du Fou (85) One of the most popular theme parks in
France, famous for its historic reenactments (daily in summer).
- The
river Loire (44 / 49) The wide slow-moving Loire
is one of Europe's great rivers. The river, excellent for
fishing, is bordered by many attractive small towns, and the
flat land is good for cycling.
- Rivers Maine, Mayenne and Sarthe: (49, 53, 72) riverboat cruising (cabin cruisers), from several boat hire bases.
- Le
Mans (72) - Famous for its annual 24 hour motor endurance
race
- La Flèche (72) : Zoo de la Flèche, one of the five major zoos in France
- Angers
(49) Historic city, with one of the biggest and finest mediaeval
castles in France.
- Laval (53).
Old city with some interesting and unusual monuments, and the
unique Lactopole, a museum of the milk, cheese and dairy industry
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