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ANGLES
(NE of La
Tranche-sur-Mer)
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TROUSSEPOIL
A bear on the roof of the church is not something
you see every day!
Look up high above the street to see Troussepoil, a horrible beast that once
terrorised the people who lived in the village. Eventually a holy man managed
to tame it and turn it to stone.
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A high-flying bear
at Angles
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ST BENOIST-SUR-MER
(NE of
Angles and of La Tranche-sur-Mer)
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PIPE-SMOKING RABBIT
Stand back from the church and look up at the
roof. Can you make out a rabbit smoking a pipe? (If so, you've got good
eyes!) A monk is supposed to have put him up there long ago, when the roof
was being repaired.
This village was once on the coast - you can guess where the water used to
come to by looking at the fields below, which at one time were covered by the
sea.
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It's hard to spot
the tiny rabbit above,
but here's a
sketch of it, below
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PÉTOSSE
(W of
Fontenay-le-Comte)
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LES CHATS FERRÉS
If you go inside the church in this village,
look around carefully and try and spot a tiny plaster cat - or at least, the
front of one. (A clue: it's high up at one side of the "cupola",
the domed area in the centre of the church, and not very easy to see.)
There is a legend in Pétosse that some cats ("les chats ferrés")
wore horseshoes ("fers") on their feet - can you see a street
called after them?
If you visit the Petosse
website, you can "tour" a maze of tunnels that run beneath the
village. (Look for the links with the word “souterrains”.)
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Cat and horseshoe:
emblem of Pétosse
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LUÇON
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JARDIN DUMAINE
Find the lovely park (in the area behind the
tourist office). At the far end, beyond the shady alleys of yew hedges,
you'll find a lawn with flower beds. Sticking up among these are some small
topiary animals - you might recognise one group that shows The Fox and the
Grapes from Aesop's/La Fontaine's fables.
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Quaintly trimmed
topiary animals at Luçon
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LE VEILLON
(SW of
Talmont-St Hilaire)
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DINOSAURS
On this beautiful sandy beach, not far from
Talmont, archaeologists discovered footprints of dinosaurs! You are unlikely
to see any sign of them today - they're usually covered by the sea except at
exceptionally low tides. (The preserved impressions can be seen in the
Ecomusée at the Puy du Fou castle, near Les Epesses.)
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Dinosaurs once roamed
here at Le Veillon
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LA MOTHE ACHARD
(between La
Roche and Les Sables d'Olonne; take Talmont/ Grosbreuil road)
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KATSIKA
Not cats at all, but fluffy angora goats - a farm
full of them. (Watch out for the tethered billy goat - he's got huge horns.)
The owners make the goats' hair into beautiful coloured wools, which are for
sale in the barn. You can also buy goats' cheeses.
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Fearsome
billy goat at Katsika
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ST-JEAN-DE-MONTS
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FERME
DES POMMETTES
Here's a farm with donkeys, rabbits, geese,
sheep etc that you can stroke, and feed with grain - though watch you don't
get nipped by some of the greedier ones! There is also a
"swin-golf" course - like real golf but using only one club which
has three sides.
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One of the donkeys at Les Pommettes
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ST-JEAN-DE-MONTS (again)
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LITTLE PEDAL PONIES
At low tide you can pedal small metal carts
around the beach - steering the "pony" with long reins rather like
a jockey at a trotting race does from his spindly "sulky".
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Pedal pony cart
at St-Jean-de-Monts
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LES SABLES-D'OLONNE
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THE ZOO
in the south-east corner of the town, not far from the Casino des Pins, is an
extremely pleasant spot. Lots of shady bushes where you can get out of the
sun for a bit, and you can buy bags of food for some of the animals.
Sometimes the small roving monkeys swing down from the trees to check out
what's been left in the litter bins. Open daily.
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Otter at
Les Sables zoo
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CHALLANS
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"AUTREFOIS CHALLANS,
LA FOIRE…"
is a series of days in the summer (two Thursdays
in July, and two Thursdays in August, see Calendar pages) when
the whole town puts on an old-fashioned market day, with everybody dressed in
clothes from 80 years ago. You can take a (real) horse-drawn cart ride,
stroke cackling ducks, plump green frogs or sandy-coloured chickens, and have
lots of fun and games. And look out for the two enormous slides - one like a
huge duck and one a giant chicken.
Even the ordinary Challans market day (Tuesday morning) is
pretty good, with stalls in all the streets. Nobody is dressed up, but you
should still find the slides, as well as a few live chickens for sale in the
"Champ de Foire" area.
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Ducks waiting in their crates for sale,
at Challans market
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