04 January 2019

Île de Noirmoutier : le Bois de la Chaise

Le Bois de la Chaise is described as a forêt (forest) on the Île de Noirmoutier, on the Atlantic coast of France. It covers only 110 hectares. That's 1.1 square kilometers, or less than half a square mile. The place we found where we could eat our picnic lunch last October 24, when we were spending a week on the coast, was in the Bois de la Chaise. I've been looking again at some of the photos I took there — so here are a couple. Also, chaise means "chair." I don't know why the "forest" is called the "woods of the chair."


Obviously, the French word forêt doesn't have the same meaning as the English word "forest" — at least not in the way we use the term in North America. Anyway, this looks a lot like a scene on the North Carolina coast, thanks to the live oak trees. I don't know if they are the same species, but they must be very closely related. In French they're called chênes verts — "green oaks." They stay green year-round.


I'm not sure what Natasha the Sheltie was doing when I took this photo. That's Walt with the sun on his face. Sorry for the poor image quality. I am sure that the picnic table also looks just like a picnic table you'd see in North Carolina. We were lucky to find one that wasn't already being used. We hadn't yet got our lunch out of the insulated Whole Foods bag we had packed it in early in the morning, before leaving the gîte.


We weren't far at all from the beach. Again, this is the bay side of the island. The body of water is called an anse in French. I knew the term, but I hadn't thought about how it would be translated. I understood it as "an arm of the sea." I just looked it up and found the term "cove" — that's exactly what it would be called in N.C. as well.


Above are the cabines de plage on the nearby Plage des Sableaux. I think we might call them "beach cabanas" but I see the term "beach huts" on English language versions of Noirmoutier tourist sites. They are little cabins where you can change into your bathing costume, with your modesty uncompromised.


Can you tell I felt at home on Noirmoutier island? I keep thinking I might like to live there. It probably won't ever happen — we are too settled here in Saint-Aignan, and we don't have much to complain about. Since Noirmoutier is not more than four hours (170 miles) away by car, maybe the thing to do would be to go back in different seasons and see what it is like at other times of the year.

25 comments:

  1. Those beach huts would be brightly coloured in the UK... there are some classic ones around.
    And it isn't just for changing in... you leave everything you need for the time at the beach in there... tea-making gear, picnic tables, wind shelters, portable barbie, parasol brolly[ies] and of course, deckchairs!!
    And looking at the boats lined up... I hazard that some have a whole stash of sailing gear, too.
    In the UK, a lot of the insides of beach huts are done out like a mini-lounge... the inclement weather, you understand!

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    1. Tim, in North Carolina's semi-tropical climate, we would just get in the car in our bathing suits and drive to the beach witout worrying about chilly weather.

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  2. Good morning,

    Your post got me curious. You should check the following link: http://www.toponymes-archives.vendee.fr/toponyme-bois-de-la-chaise-le-383, as well as the French Wikipedia article about Forêt. Defining what constitutes a forest is apparently not as easy as it looks!

    Have a good afternoon.

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    1. My point is that "a forest" in America is extensive. Forêts in France can be very small in comparison. C'est à l'échelle du pays, peut-être. The words are not synonymous on any international level.

      Thanks for the toponymes link. I'll have a look.

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    2. Thank you for the link. Very interesting, because what is good for Vendée should also apply to the rest of France. I didn't know, nor thought tbh, that chez was a derivation of casa, however obvious it might look! LOL You learn something new every day.

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  3. Like you, I've never worked out if what Americans call live oak is the same as what I would call holm oak.

    There is a lieu dit just outside of Saint Georges sur Cher called La Chaise. I've always assumed it referred to a land formation (a dip on a ridge or something like that).

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    1. I've never heard of holm oak. There are live oak trees in the U.S. Southeast and in California.

      Chaise as a place name seems to derive from casa through phonetic erosion or evolution. It's a place where there was a significant house, I guess.

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    2. I was typing the folowing while Ken was doing the same!

      Susan, in Auvergne, there is an abbey famous for its danse macabre which is called la Chaise-Dieu. It seems the name comes from a deformation of the Latin Casa Dei, meaning house of God.

      So, I wonder if the name of your lieu-dit near Saint-Georges-sur-Cher doesn't come from some kind of structure, casa now vanished. In the case of Noirmoutier, it could be there was in the woods in the old days some kind of shelter where an ermit would live?

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    3. Regarding live or evergreen oaks, this Wikipedia article is fairly detailed.

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    4. There is a casa (château) de la Chaise at St-Georges. It's a B & B.

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    5. There is a château de la Caze in the Tarn river valley.

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    6. There is a river named La Chaise in the Alps, in Savoie. Here's what Wikipedia says about the name. Again, it has to do with casa (house), going back to the Celtic language and Roman times:

      L'hydronyme proviendrait du mot latin casa qui désigne un lieu habité. Ainsi, le chanoine Gros admet que le torrent porte le nom en référence à l'occupation humaine d'un lieu et qui aurait dérivé en Chaise. La forme Aqua Chesie indique « l'eau de la Chaise, l'eau qui passe à la Chaise. » Le religieux poursuit ainsi sa réflexion en considérant que ce village serait probablement celui du hameau actuel d'Outrechaise (Outre-Chaise), sur la commune d'Ugine.

      Le torrent est mentionné en 1375 sous la forme Aqua Chesie, puis Chèze en 1807. Le cours d'eau, au XIXe siècle, était aussi référencé comme Monthoux, pendant que la commune d'Ugine s'appelait Outrechaise.

      Selon l'historien local Bernard-Marie Pajani, qui reprend en partie les réflexions du chanoine Gros, le toponyme de Casuaria (nom de l'ancienne mansio romaine de Viuz-Faverges) proviendrait du mot celte Casua, signifiant la Chaise, auquel serait adjoint le suffixe -aria (dérivant du préfixe are-) signifiant près de.

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    7. Très intéressant. Ces dérivations sont toujours pleines de surprises.

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  4. Ah! Learned a new word today (anse). Thanks!

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    1. Anses are also the curved handles on baskets or shopping bags.

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    2. Faire danser l'anse du panier!

      It is also the handle of a cup. I think "curved" is the key word.

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  5. Maybe "wooded glen" would be closer? Is there a word for that in french?

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    1. I'd suggest a vallon boisé.

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    2. Le Bois de la Chaise is not in a glen but on a sandstone plateau at water's edge. But it is, I think, more "a wood" than a forest. It's a park, really.

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  6. The pictures of the landscape remind me very much of Fire Island.

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    1. I've never been to Fire Island, but I've seen Parting Glances several times.

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  7. As to your yen to live on Noirmoutier, just think what the conditions would be during the depth of winter and/or the Atlantic storms, Roderick

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    1. I think about what the throngs of tourists and the traffic congestion would be like every summer.

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  8. That table is a classic design. We have a lot of construction going on in our neighborhood and the workers hammered one like it to use for their lunches. I love the cabanas.

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  9. I'd only heard Anse before as part of Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland.
    There are beach huts, cabanas, changing shacks along parts of the Channel coast, too, at the landing beaches. Although when I saw them last winter they were all closed up. Brrrr.

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