The west coast of this island is dominated by great curves of golden sand, while its northern Atlantic shores are home to craggy cliffs, secluded bays, and creeks. This small island lies 3 miles (5 km) from the mainland and can be reached by the Passage du Gois, which becomes submerged at high tide.
Don’t miss the island’s 12th-century castle and church, once a Benedictine priory.
Noirmoutier is a tidal island off the Atlantic coast of France in the Vendée department. Noirmoutier was the location of an early Viking raid in 799, when raiders attacked the monastery of Saint Philibert of Jumièges in 799.
The Vikings established a permanent base on the island around 824, from which they could control southeast Brittany by the 840s. In 848, they sacked Bordeaux. From 862 until 882, Hastein used it as a base from which he raided Francia and Brittany.
Noirmoutier was the site of several campaigns in the War of the Vendée, as well as a massacre and the place of execution of the Royalist Generalissimo Maurice D’Elbée, who faced the firing squad seated in a chair due to wounds accumulated from an earlier battle. Wikipedia