The Vendee : with Nantes & Pornic, plus La Rochelle & the Ile de Re (Paperback)

New from Bradt is the thoroughly updated second edition of The Vend?e, the only English-language guidebook to focus on this part of Pays de la Loire. Also covered in this guide to an increasingly popular French region are Nantes, Pornic, La Rochelle and the ?le de R?. Written by Angela Bird, who for almost 50 years has owned a home in the region, and award-winning travel writer Murray Stewart, and updated by adventurer Ed Cooper, Bradt's guidebook offers comprehensive coverage of a beguiling area, detailing everything from family holidays to walks, cycling, local cuisine and history.

The Vend?e offers all the benefits of a well-established destination that makes for a diverse outdoor playground, given its sunny climate, 140 km of sandy beaches, tree-lined canals and open marshland. Bradt's The Vend?e includes suggestions for walks and the best places for birdwatching. This goes hand in hand with the current regional policy of promoting recreation premised on nature and wellbeing.

Thanks to the authors' rich personal history with the area, the guide also reveals the quirks and themes which give the Vend?e its own distinct character, as well as straying just beyond the area's boundaries to incorporate La Rochelle and Nantes, both entry points for those arriving by air and both offering urban distractions for the occasional rainy day. Although the region has no true cities, or even large towns, the guide includes details of the many local museums which provide easily accessible insights into the bloody history of an area which has, at times, been central to the evolution of modern-day France.

New elements in this edition of Bradt's The Vend?e include expanded coverage of architecture, the Vend?e sections of a 1,300-km Atlantic cycle route (La V?lodys?e), France's most dazzling son-et-lumi?re show and new restaurant listings that reflect the region's growing reputation for wine, collection of Michelin-starred eateries and long history as a paradise for seafood-lovers.