Mornac. Places to visit in France

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Mornac (Mornac-sur-Seudre) is a fishing village about 10 -20 mins’ drive from the Domaine de Rochebonne.  Like so many of these places, when we first came here it was a dark, dirty and smelly backwater.  In the past ten years or so it has been renovated and is now classified as one of the prettiest villages of France.

  les halles – 13th century market place

Oyster farming and salt from the surrounding marshlands are its two main forms of income.  It is in no way a shopping centre but there is a good selection of nice little shops, ranging from clothes boutiques to artist galleries, hand-made items of varying shapes and sizes and hand-painted crockery.  There is a boulangerie and a chemist, but otherwise the shops are essentially for tourists.

There are several very good restaurants and on a sunny day it is wonderful to be able to sit outside and eat while gentle port activity goes on around.

One small warning – this is rural France and shops will still close for two or three hours in the middle of the day, sometimes even in August.

You cannot drive in to the village centre.  However, parking is easy, just behind the 14th Century church, St Pierre, well worth a visit.  Churches in the area were almost always fortified because of invasion (and occupation) by the English 400 years ago.  Wander round the quaint streets. There is a tour available in the summer, and this will take you round the salt marshes and the oyster farms – far more interesting than you’d think.

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