Guérande and the Brière: Salt Pans and Thatched Villages
Pays de la Loire, France
Badge Unlock
Guérande Paludier
Complete this challenge to add this badge to your collection.
275
XP
+100 France
= 375 total
2 days
Guérande and the Brière: Salt Pans and Thatched Villages
275 + 100 XP
Guérande is a medieval town inside 1,434 m of rampart, kept whole and listed since 1877; below it spreads a classified salt landscape of 3,610 hectares across five communes, where each paludier works fifty or sixty œillets and rakes 60 to 90 tonnes of grey salt and only two or three of fleur de sel in a summer. Inland is the Brière, 7,000 hectares of peat marsh crossed by flat-bottomed chalands, with its restored thatched hamlet at Kerhinet.
Required Activities
1
of 5
Walk the whole 1,434 m of Guérande's ramparts, the only complete circuit in Brittany's salt country, and read the centuries off them: the 12th-century wall by the Porte de Saillé, the Tour Saint-Jean of about 1400 with its openings widened for cannon instead of crossbows, the low 15th-century curtains built deliberately low to give artillery nothing to breach — then go in under the Porte Saint-Michel and find the town arms on it, two helmeted lions holding the shield of Montfort
2
of 5
Walk the pans with a paludier from Terre de Sel at Pradel and get them to name their three tools as they use them — the five-metre las that pushes the grey salt off the clay floor, the lousse that lifts fleur de sel off the surface, the râteau à limu that clears the weed — then smell a handful of unwashed fleur de sel and find the violet in it
3
of 5
In the Musée des Marais salants at Batz-sur-Mer, in two old salt granaries and a salt washhouse, find the wooden paludier tools — every one of them made of wood, not metal — and the working clothes and wedding costumes a nun of Batz, Adèle Pichon, began collecting from her own family's trade in 1887; outside, find Jean Fréour's bronze of a Batz woman carrying salt on a gède
4
of 5
Walk the eighteen thatched cottages of Kerhinet, bought derelict by the Brière park in the 1970s and now entirely pedestrian, and look at how the roofs are built: reed more than a metre thick, pitched between 45 and 53 degrees so the rain runs off before it soaks in; then find the bread oven standing well clear of the houses, its mouth turned north-north-east away from the wind, because an oven beside a thatched roof burns the village down
5
of 5
Take a chaland out of Bréca into the Grande Brière mottière, 6,700 hectares that have belonged undivided to the people of the surrounding parishes since a letter patent of Duke Francis II in 1461, and get the boatman to show you a curée — the ring canal round an island village, with the chalandières cut off it where the boats are moored
Walk the whole 1,434 m of Guérande's ramparts, the only complete circuit in Brittany's salt country, and read the centuries off them: the 12th-century wall by the Porte de Saillé, the Tour Saint-Jean of about 1400 with its openings widened for cannon instead of crossbows, the low 15th-century curtains built deliberately low to give artillery nothing to breach — then go in under the Porte Saint-Michel and find the town arms on it, two helmeted lions holding the shield of Montfort
Walk the pans with a paludier from Terre de Sel at Pradel and get them to name their three tools as they use them — the five-metre las that pushes the grey salt off the clay floor, the lousse that lifts fleur de sel off the surface, the râteau à limu that clears the weed — then smell a handful of unwashed fleur de sel and find the violet in it
In the Musée des Marais salants at Batz-sur-Mer, in two old salt granaries and a salt washhouse, find the wooden paludier tools — every one of them made of wood, not metal — and the working clothes and wedding costumes a nun of Batz, Adèle Pichon, began collecting from her own family's trade in 1887; outside, find Jean Fréour's bronze of a Batz woman carrying salt on a gède
Walk the eighteen thatched cottages of Kerhinet, bought derelict by the Brière park in the 1970s and now entirely pedestrian, and look at how the roofs are built: reed more than a metre thick, pitched between 45 and 53 degrees so the rain runs off before it soaks in; then find the bread oven standing well clear of the houses, its mouth turned north-north-east away from the wind, because an oven beside a thatched roof burns the village down
Take a chaland out of Bréca into the Grande Brière mottière, 6,700 hectares that have belonged undivided to the people of the surrounding parishes since a letter patent of Duke Francis II in 1461, and get the boatman to show you a curée — the ring canal round an island village, with the chalandières cut off it where the boats are moored
Before you go
The paludiers rake fleur de sel by hand from June to September.
Terre de Sel is open seven days a week all year and schedules guided pan walks every day, shutting only on 1 January and 25 December and closing at 5pm in January, so the paludier walk works out of season — but it is a working salt marsh and what you see in February is clay and water, not salt. The Musée des Marais salants at Batz-sur-Mer is the one that closes: its calendar runs to mid-October, reopens only for the Christmas holidays and then shuts again, so ring 02 40 23 82 79 before counting on it in winter or spring. The chalands from the port de Bréca run daily, 9am to 6pm.
Finding nearby campsites...
About Pays de la Loire
Loading region info…
Explore more about Pays de la Loire:
Challenge Location
XP Breakdown
Challenge XP
275 XP
France country bonus
+100 XP
Potential total
375 XP
Country bonus earned on completion of your first challenge in France.
More challenges nearby
within 100km
La Baule: Eight Kilometres of Sand and the Villas of the Bay
France · Pays de la Loire
relaxation
easy
1d
5 km away
Saint-Nazaire: Ocean Liners, a Submarine and the Serpent of the Loire
France · Pays de la Loire
cultural
easy
2d
17 km away
Gulf of Morbihan: The Séné Marshes, Gavrinis and the Dukes' Suscinio
France · Brittany
nature
easy
2d
39 km away
Locmariaquer: The Great Broken Menhir and the Table des Marchands
France · Brittany
history
easy
1d
48 km away
The Île-aux-Pies: Granite Cliffs, Canoes and the Nantes–Brest Canal
France · Brittany
active
medium
2d
49 km away
Passage du Gois: Driving to Noirmoutier at Low Tide
France · Pays de la Loire
scenic
easy
1d
50 km away