In the Vendée, according to the latest statistics, nearly seventy farms are now putting out welcoming signs for tourists to visit them, not so much as cheap bed and breakfast accommodation, but to see them at work and to buy some of their produce.

For example, the Girouard farm of Francoise and Philippe Charpentier, are selling goats cheese and mohair wool from their sixty-odd goats, which you can see being milked and sheared.

Seventy ‘agritourism’ farms seems a lot to most Britons but in fact it represents only one per cent of the thousands of farms in the Vendée.

Look out for the signs: ferme auberge or goûter à la ferme.