Guérande and Brière: Salt and Flavours

Three days between salt and fresh water, on a peninsula where salt workers have harvested by hand since the ninth century. The route starts at Guerande, a medieval town with complete ramparts and four fortified gates, then Terre de Sel where a guided tour explains the work in the salt pans and the gathering of fleur de sel, before the Briere regional park, France's second largest marsh, crossed in a flat-bottomed punt poled by hand. Le Croisic and its fish auction, then La Baule with its nine kilometres of beach, close the trip. Salt is harvested from June to September, the only period when the pans are really at work. Punt trips must be booked, and dusk is the best time for marsh wildlife.