- The island of Noirmoutier is one of the nature of the Vendée coast destinations with an incredible diversity of landscapes: beaches, forests, dunes, marshes. To get there, you take the bridge or at times of low tide, a unique submarine road: the Passage du Gois.
- The island offers local produce such as potatoes from Noirmoutier, samphire and sea salt, but also fish, oysters and shellfish.
- History:
- Some tools dating from the Mesolithic "10,000 BC" were found in the wood of the Chaize, as well as locations of dolmens and menhirs ... Neolithic men were already exploiting the salt marshes and salt exchanged against products from Turkey, Italy, Greece and elsewhere (clothing, weapons, vases, cups ...).
- The Gauls worked to enrich their knowledge until the Roman invasion, and the island of "Her" Noirmoutier enjoyed a beautiful prosperity of a few centuries before it knows the invasions.
- Christianity was officially recognized by Augustine Roman Emperor in 312. From there going to be born among Christians a frenzy of destruction. Everything that could represent dolmens, menhirs, tables and sacred altars, groves, temples, amulets, pendants, statues were systematically destroyed. In the wood of the Chaize, the Mecca of Druidism, excavations have uncovered the Roman baths and a Gallo-Roman villa. After the fall of Rome, the Vandals, barbarians of Germania and all cohorts from the East overran the Roman Empire to rob this colossus has placed some 266 land and drove a spike on the Vendée coast.
- In 572, the son of Clovis is spreading terror in the Vendee ... Théodeber in 575, King of the Franks, came to devastate coastal towns and vendee, and to finish this series, the plague did not spare the Vendee in 580.
- In 674, Saint Philbert de Noirmoutier evangelist founded a monastery, it was destroyed by the Saracens in 725 and 732. It was rebuilt in 801 and was again destroyed by the Normans in 846.
- To resist invasions, the lord of the Garnache built a motte in Noirmoutier in 830 to protect the inhabitants. The island was attacked by the Normans in 834, and 835 in the monastery of Noirmoutier was looted and occupied the island.
- At the end of the 12th century, the current castle was built. During the Hundred Years War, Noirmoutier had to undergo attempts at English invasions in 1342, 1360 and 1386 and other attempts from Spain in 1524 and 1588.
- In 1562, the Huguenots took possession of the island during the war of religion.
- From the 17th century, the island is transformed, the marshes are drained, dikes are enhanced with Jacobsen as prime contractor. Polder-saving land on the sea, Noirmoutier intensifying its agriculture and livestock.
- In 1789, French Revolution, Noirmoutier is far from all that, but in 1793 the Republican Army wants to seize the island, but is rejected on the continent. In 1794, another attempt, the Republicans seized the island of Noirmoutier, 1500 are civilian and military prisoners they pass through the arms (the bodies are still buried in the dunes of the beach of Viel). The Vendée wars have affected 830 municipalities and departments of 4 400 000 were dead. The Vendée has taken a century to recover.
