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...AND
THERE'S MORE!
Here are some other websites devoted to holiday accommodation in the area:
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Villa des Roses - a gite and B&B rooms, with
pool, in the delightful old town of Luçon.
Le Tournesol – a farmhouse,
with pool, near historic Fontenay-le-Comte.
Vendee Gites – a site listing more
than 20 holiday homes with pool, mostly in South Vendée.
La
Petite Chauvetterie – a pretty gite, in the countryside near Luçon.
Les Mazes - a group of gites in the
countryside near Chantonnay, near to some good angling.
HolidayVendée -
villas for rent near the coast, in the Notre-Dame-de-Monts area.
RentAHolidayHouseinFrance.com
- A site for holiday cottages, with several in the Vendée
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In the South
Vendée the Mélusine-Accueil association is a network of 80
professionals in the tourist business who run carefully-vetted bed &
breakfast accommodation, gîtes, restaurants, local produce, leisure
activities.
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And you can always return to the Practical page for
further suggestions.
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GETTING
THERE
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FERRY CROSSINGS
Nearest ferry
port is St Malo (served by Brittany
Ferries and Condor), 3
hours' drive away, almost all on dual carriageway.
Brittany Ferries' ports of Roscoff
(5 hrs away), also used by Irish Ferries; the
Normandy ports of Caen (4 hrs) and Cherbourg (4.5 hrs) are served by Brittany Ferries , and Cherbourg also by Irish Ferries.
The toll-free dual-carriageway road across Normandy (Caen-Avranches-Rennes) makes
for very easy driving from Cherbourg or Caen.
In 2006 the new section of the toll motorway was opened from Rouen to Alençon, Le Mans and Angers, linking with the Cholet-La
Roche-sur-Yon motorway, making the drive from Calais/Boulogne considerably
quicker.
Dover to Calais is convenient for many (roughly
8 hrs to the Vendée), with P&O,
Hoverspeed, SeaFrance and others. The admirable Speedferries who are undercutting
most other fares on their one-hour Dover-Boulogne crossings, while Eurotunnel’s “Shuttle” whisks cars and
their passengers under the Channel in just 36 minutes. Anyone travelling from
Scotland and the North of England might
want to consider P&O's
ferry from Hull to Zeebrugge or the Superfast Ferries route from Rosyth to
Zeebrugge (around a 8-hr drive - mostly on motorways - to the Vendée).
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OTHER METHODS
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Anybody joining you without a car
can fly from London Stansted to Nantes, La Rochelle or Poitiers, or from Nottingham or Shannon to Nantes, with Ryanair, and hire a car. Easyjet also
operate flights to Nantes and La Rochelle in the summer months.
Train passengers can take Eurostar from London St Pancras to Lille-Europe,
then travel by the French Railways
TGV to Nantes from the same station. (Note:
Lille has another station – Lille-Flandres,
about 10 minutes’ walk from Lille-Europe. No direct trains to Nantes run from here).
From Nantes there are connections by local train on the branch to Challans
and St-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie, or another branch to La Roche-sur-Yon and
then either to Les Sables-d’Olonne, or to Luçon and La Rochelle
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Coach travel from London's Victoria Coach Station is
provided by Eurolines , though
considering how long it takes (overnight, via Dover) it is surprisingly expensive.
There are no coach destinations actually in the Vendée; the nearest are Nantes, Niort and La Rochelle.
Once in the Vendée, you are not well served for public road transport. Click here to see the
Sovetours bus services within the département (click on “carte du réseau”
to see routes, and
then on individual route numbers to see the timetables.
More information on Getting
There on http://www.the-vendee.co.uk/intro
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