Les plages de la Madeleine et du Vieil à Noirmoutier

These are photos that I took on the northeast shore of the Île de Noirmoutier, in the town of Noirmoutier-en-l'Île. This is the bay side of the island, looking out over the Baie de Bourgneuf — Bourgneuf is a town on the mainland. I was surprised at how rocky this coast is.

When Atlantic storms approach the coast, or when flood tides occur, well... you can see why there are such tall and solid seawalls to keep the water, as it were, at bay. I would like to go back to Noirmoutier one day to see what it looks like at high tide.

We found a place to park the car just south of the marker on the map above for the Plage de la Madeleine (plage means beach). There is a strand of sand but it was the rocks that impressed me. We walked east along the beach over to the road where the restaurant known as Le Chat Perché is located. Then we walked along the road over to the Plage du Vieil (vieil is a form of the word vieux, meaning "old.")

I mentioned the smell of the seaweed in an earlier post. It smelled really good to me — the air "smells like low tide" is what we would say on the North Carolina coast. On the right in the photo above, you can see three boys walking on the rocks, which are covered in seaweed. I bet it was pretty slippery.

Our Shetland sheepdog Natasha had never been to the beach before. She was obviously really excited by the experience. But she stayed close to us and pretty much ignored the other people who were out on the beach and rocks. The weather here in Saint-Aignan has turned cold — it's below freezing this morning — and it's nice to remember warm sunny days like the one you see in these photos. Here's a link to a map of all the Noirmoutier beaches.