Deux-Sèvres

One of the four departments that make up the Poitou Charentes region of France, and one of the 87 departments created after the French Revolution, Deux Sévres is slightly more off the beaten track than its neighbours.

In the south west of the Deux Sèvres you find the Marais Poitevin (literally, the Poitou Marsh), an immense network of natural and manmade water channels through a fenland landscape that offers possibilities for walking, boating, fishing or just kicking back and enjoying the green and leafy surroundings. Nature-lovers searching for their dream French property to buy will find their niche here with kingfishers, herons, deer and coypu to be spied.

Elsewhere in Deux Sèvres the landscape is mostly agricultural and time turns slowly to the rhythm of the farming year.