Accommodation in the Vendée

The Vendée is arguably the most popular holiday destination on the Atlantic coast of France. If you are planning to visit the Vendée accommodation will be the first thing you want to decide upon, especially if you are going to visit the region in high season.

Choosing Vendée Accommodation

From chambres d’hôtes to hotels, gites and campsites, prices are a little less than nearer to the coast. In high season, however, that can change as people from all over France including Paris, love to visit the area for their summer vacation.

Here are some examples of the type of holiday accommodation available:

Bed & Breakfast (Chambres d’hôtes)

To be found throughout the Vendée with many of them offering an evening meal as an option. This can be a great way of getting to meet people and practice your French in a family environment. Gites de France have 10,000 listed on their website.

Hotels

These are usually graded from 0 to 5 stars nationally. The Logis de France website lists hotels in the Vendée at this address: http://vendee.logishotels.com/en.html

These will be a guaranteed quality and not necessarily expensive. If you are just looking for an overnight stay then maybe you should consider one of the motel chains for example Ibis or Novotel which can generally be found in or near most big towns. The quality of food at these hotels tends to be of a higher quality than in the UK and frequently has a regional emphasis.

Gites

These may be generally defined as a rural property to be used as self catering holiday accommodation. The type of property will vary greatly – sometimes it will be stand-alone and sometimes be attached to the owners property. It could be a small cottage or a farmhouse or even a château! Once again the Gites de France website has tens of thousands of gites listed on their website: http://www.gites-de-france.com/ Renting a gite is probably the best way to get a feel of living in France.

Vendée Camping

With almost 400 classified campsites plus small campsites located on farms, the Vendée is the main destination for camping in the whole of France! Michelin’s ‘Camping France’ is probably the best book to help you with camping in the Vendée. A new addition of this useful publication is generally released each spring. Another valuable publication is: ‘AA Camping’. The campsites you will find in the Vendée will be of differing quality but in general municipal sites tend to give a high standard and represent more value for money.