Guerande

Guerande keeps its full ring of medieval walls, about one and a half kilometres with ten towers and four gates, one of the few in France that was never breached for road building. Below the town spread the salt marshes, a grid of shallow clay pans where paludiers still harvest by hand using long wooden rakes, taking coarse grey salt from the pan floor and the fine fleur de sel that forms as a crust on the surface in dry weather. The method has changed little since the ninth century. Salt is sold everywhere in the town, and guided walks into the marshes explain the water circuit that concentrates the brine.

History

About half the surviving megaliths of Loire-Atlantique stand on the Guérande peninsula, dating from around 5200-2200 BC, and at the end of the Iron Age the area lay between the Veneti to the north and the Namnetes to the south, a crossroads of waterways used by Celtic tribes and Greek traders. Saint Clair, first Bishop of Nantes, evangelised it in the 3rd century, the Breton prince Waroch may have founded its first parish in the 6th, and around 848, under Nominoe, it was briefly the seat of a bishopric, while Salomon founded a college of canons; by the turn of the millennium a fortified town had grown around the castle. Capital of the Pays Guérandais in the Duchy of Brittany, it was sacked in 1343 during the Breton War of Succession by the troops of Luis de la Cerda; its walls, 1434 metres round, are among the best preserved in France (Wikipedia, Guérande).

What you'll find

• The complete walls - an unbroken medieval ring with four gates.
• The salt pans - a clay grid of shallow basins below the town.
• The paludiers at work - hand harvesting with long wooden rakes in summer.
• Fleur de sel - the fine crust skimmed from the surface on dry days.

When to go

Harvest runs roughly June to September and is the time to see the marshes worked; it stops entirely in rain. The town is busiest in August. Marsh walks need booking.

Practical notes

The salt marshes are working ground, not a park, and paths through them are narrow and exposed with no shade. Harvesting stops in wet weather. The town centre is heavily given to salt and souvenir shops.

Nearby

La Baule lies south; Le Croisic is west.

Key facts