Curçay-sur-Dive Bread and Fouée Festival with Flea Market

A traditional festival in the Dive valley

Curçay-sur-Dive is a small Loudunais commune at the far north of Vienne, in the lush Dive valley. Each spring, Les Amis de Niré association (tied to the Niré-le-Dolent hamlet) runs the Bread and Fouée Festival with Flea Market, a favourite with Loudunais locals and bargain-hunters. 2026: Sunday 17 May.

Bread and fouée, centuries-old know-how

The festival heart is the traditional bread oven. Heated from early morning, volunteers bake bread and above all fouée all day — that small slightly puffed flatbread baked at very high temperature, garnished out of the oven (rillettes, cheese, honey, jam). Val de Loire and Poitou specialty, eaten hot at the oven is the festival's culinary highlight.

Parallel flea market

Around the bread festival runs a large flea market filling village streets and oven surroundings. Locals and Loudunais regulars set up at dawn: bric-a-brac, toys, clothes, crockery, books, small furniture. The dual formula is key: come to chine, leave with a hot fouée in hand.

What to find

• Hot fouées from wood-fired oven
• Traditional bread baking all day
• Private Loudunais sellers at the flea market
• Bric-a-brac, toys, clothes, crockery, books, small furniture
• Terroir products and fouée fillings
• Country catering (garnished fouées, grills, salads)
• Musical entertainment some years

Les Amis de Niré, a committed association

Les Amis de Niré — named after the Niré-le-Dolent hamlet — embodies the community spirit keeping small Loudunais villages alive. Volunteers run the bread festival, maintain the traditional oven, perpetuate wood-fired baking skills.

Curçay-sur-Dive, an edge-of-Vienne village

Small commune of under 300 inhabitants, northwest of Loudun, near Maine-et-Loire (Saumurois) and Deux-Sèvres (Thouarsais) borders. Dive valley landscape. Modest but authentic heritage: church, tuffeau stone houses.

Near Loudun and Saumurois

Loudun (sub-prefecture, Urbain Grandier, Théophraste Renaudot) and wine-growing Saumurois nearby: Loire châteaux, Saumur troglodytes, cooperative cellars. Good base for Poitou-Anjou exploration.