The history of La Baule: A famous French resort town

La Baule is one of the most famous vacation and resort areas of France. This town is located at the seaside of Brittany, towards west of Nantes and counts with an important amount of interesting historic data in its past. Today, La Baule is one of the most attractive resorts in France and one of the busiest within the region as well.

The history of La Baule

During the XI century, the town mainly consisted on the abbey of Marmoutier, around which many constructions were built as time passed by. Several centuries later, towards the last decades of the XVIII century, this area was affected by an important amount of sand storms which changed some aspects of its structure due to the fact that a part of the town became buried by the sand.

Aerial view of the beach, sea, and hotels in La Baule, France.
Beach in La Baule

The town itself, as it is known today, was born towards the last decades of the XIX century. During that époque, the town was not seen as a resort or tourism area but as a town like any other which contained beautiful beaches that attracted some people from other regions.

Becoming a resort town

During the first years of the XX century, La Baule started being recognized as a resort and started attracting more and more visitors towards its beaches and attractive environment. The city activities as a resort and its fame kept increasing until World War I, when the tourism activities of the town became interrupted for a few years, after what it started being known as an ideal place for relaxing.

Beach promenade in La Baule, France. Hotels on one side of the promenade and the beach to the other side.

During the crisis of 1929 La Baule became highly affected by its consequences and stopped receiving tourists for several years, until the last years of the 1930’s. From that time until the Second World War, La Baule gained some of its original tourism traffic, but it became affected by the new war again.

A popular tourist spot

After World War II, the town started gaining more and more visitors again, becoming world wide famous in an almost uninterrupted way. Nowadays, it constantly receives a great amount of tourists from many different points as well as from France itself, who approach this area due to its beauty and famous reputation.

Map of La Baule in France

Interesting places to visit in Brittany