Traditional market gardening
A landscape between land and sea, the Marais Breton Vendéen has a rich repertoire of traditions, including music, dance, food and the distinctive architecture of the Maraîchine region, just like its dialect! This is an opportunity for your Plein Sud campsite to show you a few facets of this friendly lifestyle, marked by traditions of unchanging charm.
Traditional Maraîchine music and dance
The traditional marsh dance, Maraîchine, has been danced for hundreds of years. Originating in the Vendée marshlands around Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie and Saint-Jean-de-Monts, it’s usually danced by several people in a line or circle, or even by two. Beneath their white headdresses, the women skip to the rhythm of the accordion, veuze (rustic bagpipes) and flutes. The men accompany them in their dark berets. Lively, light and well-paced, the dances of the Vendéens were highly reputed, notably the Maraîchine and the Avent-deux. At the time, these dances had a piquant originality that struck all travelers. A light step, accompanied by “forward-backward” movements, and always with the arms swinging… Today, you can see her dance at traditional Vendée festivals on historic sites such as the Daviaud ecomuseum.
Delicious local dishes
The people of the Vendée love local traditions.
Grilled eels on vine shoots, frogs’ legs with parsley, rata de Margates (cuttlefish), gralaïe (grilled mogette, the famous Vendée bean), mussels à la maraîchine, and more. The list goes on and on. And when all these names are sung in Vendéen dialect, they’re all the more delicious and authentic.
Traditional houses called “bourrines
For centuries, the meandering marshes have been crossed, shaped and dammed by their inhabitants.
Traditional houses, known as “bourrines”, are built further north in the Vendée, using whatever the market gardeners had on hand: earth, sand, straw and reeds to make the thatched roof. They were inventive in adapting to this environment between land and sea…
