Stage 2 • LES ESSARTS > LES ESSARTS • 23km (Team Time-trial)

At the heart of the Vendée, Les Essarts is both the principal town of the Les Essarts canton and the seat of the community of the Pays des Essarts municipalities, situated at the crossroads of the A83 running from Nantes to Niort and the A87 between Paris and La Roche-sur-Yon. A number of monuments and places of interest have been preserved from its rich history: the twelfth-century chateau with its Saracen tower, Saint Peter's church, reconstructed in the nineteenth century on the site of the ruins of the twelfth century Roman church, and the twelfth-century Roman crypt, which still stands. Built in 1182, it retains its magnificent archways and pillars of the time. This tight community is nevertheless busy and diverse: 90 clubs or societies cater for everyone – from sport to culture to leisure to welfare. Culture, in particular, is given priority: Les Essarts boasts a library, schools, a private college and a public college set for completion in 2013. In addition, thanks to an exchange programme, Les Essarts is twinned with the English town of Bicester, near Oxford, and Neunkirchen-Seelscheid, near Cologne, in Germany, helping to cultivate its openness and sense of belonging to Europe.

Stage-Town for the first time

5050 inhabitants

www.ot.paysdesessarts.fr

Les Essarts shares an agricultural and industrial economy, situated in one of the most industrialised areas of the Vendée, mid-way between the Pays Yonnais and Cholet. Until 1960, the area was essentially rural, relying on traditional agriculture, based on farming and the rearing of Charolais cattle. It was two residents of Les Essarts, the Batiot brothers, who introduced the breed 100 years ago, and the Vendée is still considered that cattle breed's second home. The industrialisation of the area began in the 1960s, and today a number of businesses are based in the area's two industrial zones. Slaughter houses, poultry farms, bread-making, dried animal feed, fine leather goods, auto parts and transport are all industries that provide work for 2,500 people. The roads here at the heart of the Vendée may now have become motorways, but now as then, Les Essarts is a dynamic municipality, sure of itself and confident for the future of its inhabitants.

www.ot.paysdesessarts.fr