Information about camping in St Jean de Monts, the Vendee, Western France

St Jean de Monts is a small to medium sized town facing the Bay of Biscay, or the Atlantic coast if you prefer. It is possibly one of the most popular camping areas in the Vendee and sites are unobtrusively dotted around the outskirts of the town on all sides. They are there though, masses of them.

Without question, all the camping sites in the St Jean de Monts area are run by professionals, the sites are clean and their shops normally cater for Brit campers because the region gets so many of them.

Like so many other seaside towns St Jean de Monts is built on more than one level, in effect there are three here; top of the town, the middle and the bottom. The Lord only knows what would happen if there was a mini tsunami!

As you can imagine, the top part of St Jean is where the beach is; a wonderful, flat and sandy beach here which is fronted by a long, wide promenade. For motorists thare is a massive car park which runs the whole length of the promenade, but large as it is it does get full at weekends and in high season, so get there early!

On the other side of the road from the promenade are shops, cafes, restaurantes and hotels, and down the side streets are some quaint little shops - aimed purely at tourists but in a nice way. The best street for this kind of shopping leads off from the top of the town and to get there look for the "Lady in the Fountain" monument, and from there you just cannot miss it.

Further downhill is what looks like a market square area but it is mainly used for shoppers parking, and the odd weekend/evening groups of singers etc. Further downhill again and you will find the main streets of St Jean, bars, tabac, supermarket and the famous Englisgh/Irish Pub where you can sit and have a drink whilst watching the world go by.

There are two markets per week in St Jean; Wednesday and Saturday mornings from 7 am to about 12.30 to 1pm, and they are in the communal car park just next to the aforementioned pub. Great atmosphere here! Just wander round and browse and there is no pressure selling here or at any other market in France. There is also a permanent indoor fish/meat/cheese and general food market on the same site.

Getting to St Jean de Monts is easy as it doesn't take a Sherlock to imagine that most holidaymakers going there will be approaching from the north. If we assume that you are approaching Nantes from whichever direction you will need to get onto the Nantes périphérique or ring road. If you miss that then you have to go through the city though that isn't so bad because the road signing is so good, but you lose time by going that way. Once on the périphérique follow the signs for Bordeaux and leave it at junction 48.

Now you must take care because you are on the free part of the A83 Autoroute and in about 1.5 km you must take the turn to Challans. Don't miss it! Follow Challans signs until you pick up the one for St Jean and then on to your camping site for which you should have local directions.