Île d'Yeu
| L'Île-d'Yeu | ||
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| region | Pays de la Loire | |
| Department | Vendée | |
| Arrondissement | Les Sables-d'Olonne | |
| Canton | L'Île-d'Yeu (main town) | |
| Coordinates | 46 ° 43 ′ N , 2 ° 21 ′ W | |
| height | 0-32 m | |
| surface | 23.32 km 2 | |
| Residents | 4,809 (January 1, 2017) | |
| Population density | 206 inhabitants / km 2 | |
| Post Code | 85350 | |
| INSEE code | 85113 | |
| Website | http://mairie.ile-yeu.fr/ | |
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The Île d'Yeu is a tidal island belonging to France ( French Île-de-marée ) in the Atlantic . It is located 20 kilometers off the coast of the Vendée .
location
The island with an area of around 23 square kilometers is the most distant French Atlantic island from the mainland. The Pont d'Yeu is a land connection, which is under water during floods , to the municipality of Notre-Dame-de-Monts on the mainland . The island's capital and ferry port is Port-Joinville .
Under the name L'Île-d'Yeu , the island is also a municipality with 4809 inhabitants (as of January 1, 2017) and the places Port-Joinville, Port-de-la-Meule , Saint-Sauveur . It is the westernmost municipality in the Vendée department.
economy
The main source of income for the approximately 4600 islanders are tourism and (nowadays only to a small extent) fishing . At the end of 2015, two thirds of the 33 fishing boats registered on the island were engaged in inshore fishing, the so-called petite pêche .
tourism
The east coast facing the continent offers good bathing opportunities, as the beach slopes gently into the sea. The southwestern Côte Sauvage is steep and rocky, interrupted by a few bays with beaches. The town of Saint-Sauveur with its church, pub and market is the secret capital of the island. Also worth seeing is Port-de-la-Meule , a small natural harbor on the Côte Sauvage . Between the larger settlement areas there are small villages called Ker at the intersections of the larger roads . The word Ker is borrowed from the Latin quadrivium (French carrefour ) for crossing.
Thousands of day visitors visit the island in summer. Above all, wealthy Parisians own a house on the island, which means that there are around 35,000 people on the island in high season and 5,000 in winter. They mostly cross from Fromentine , Pointe de la Fosse or Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie by boat. Three different shipping companies transport the tourists, the VIIV ( Vedettes Inter Îles Vendéennes ), the Compagnie Vendeénnes and the Compagnie Yeu-Continent (the VIIV went bankrupt in May 2007). The companies had to react to the growing flow of tourists. With new acquisitions of catamarans, the island can be reached in 30 minutes instead of an hour. When the waves are high, however, the catamarans are a plaything of the waves and it is advisable to avoid the crossing. But there is also a helicopter connection. In the northwest of the island there is an airport called Île d'Yeu le Grand Phare ( IATA code IDY ICAO code LFEY ). It has a runway for smaller machines. The island can be reached in 30 minutes from Nantes. The flight price there and back is around 105 euros.
history
Scattered across the island are dolmens and menhirs , which indicate settlement as early as the Stone Age . The Dolmen de la Planche à Puare is located on the Anse des Broches, on the north coast of the Île d'Yeu. The simple dolmen ( French dolmen simple ) Dolmen des Petits Fradets (also called Maison de la Gournaise ) is located near La Gournaise on the "Route des Petits Frades" road and near the Allée couverte des Tabernaudes on the north coast.
In Latin the Île d'Yeu was called Insula Oya . In the Middle Ages, monks farmed the island. During the Hundred Years War , the island fell to the English crown .
A lot of grain was grown on the island and there were many windmills , but today only relics or renovated mills bear witness to it, and you can see wild grain growing almost everywhere .
citadel
There is also a citadel on the island , which was built in 1858–1866. During the First World War it served as a transshipment point for coastal batteries and their ammunition. In 1916 there were Austro-Hungarian prisoners of war there. In 1940, 125 French communists were interned in it. From 1940 to 1944 the citadel was occupied by German soldiers . A forest was planted around the citadel to camouflage it.
In the courtyard of the citadel there used to be a seven-meter-high menhir , but it was replaced by two large windmills in the 18th century. These in turn fell victim to the citadel. Today the courtyard is used for public events (circus, concerts).
From World War II to today
During the Second World War , the island was occupied by the German Wehrmacht . They built bunkers and observation posts. In November 1944 she withdrew and destroyed the large lighthouse on the island. However, they left the bunkers with many utensils to the islanders. After the Second World War, the Île d'Yeu was the place of exile for Marshal Philippe Pétain , who was sentenced to death in 1945 by a French court martial for his collaboration with the German Reich . Charles de Gaulle converted the sentence to life imprisonment and exile on the Île d'Yeu. Pétain died on July 23, 1951 at the age of 95. His grave is in the cemetery above Port-Joinville. You can find it to the right of the entrance near the Perdu en mer tablet ; enveloped by shrubs about three meters high, it is not easily visible.
In December 1999, the island suffered from the oil spill caused by the wreck of the Maltese tanker Erika .
coat of arms
The yellow shield is divided across by a blue ribbon of lines. A crown rests on the head of the shield. It is framed by two fish, laid on a golden ribbon with the motto: In Altum Lumen et Perfugium (Latin for “light and calm on the sea”, French for Au large, la lumière et le repos ).
Îles du Ponant
literature
- Le Patrimoine des Communes de la Vendée. Flohic Editions, Volume 1, Paris 2001, ISBN 2-84234-118-X , pp. 389-415.
- Th. Volkoy: Dolmens de l'Ile-d'Yeu. In: Bulletins de la Société d'anthropologie de Paris, 1896, Volume 7, No. 7, pp. 241-246.
Web links
- Official website of the Mairie (French)
- Official website of the local tourist office (French)
- Tide table for Île d'Yeu (French)
- Île d'Yeu on the community site of the Îles du Ponant (French)
- Ferry connections to Île d'Yeu (French)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Emilie LEBLOND, Vincent Badts, Fabienne Daures, Christian Dintheer: Activités the navires de pêche dans le quartier Ile-d'Yeu. In: Système d'Informations Halieutiques. ifremer, accessed September 15, 2017 (French).