Guerande is a very small town, and I felt like I’d seen most of what there was to see yesterday. And since I jogged around the city walls this morning several times, the limited size was even more apparent! So I decided to see more of the area. A short drive away are the salt marshes that have provided Guerande with some renown and a consistent economy, and by driving through them I could reach the sea at a lovely resort town called Le Croisic. Like Guerande, it sits between the estuaries of two rivers, the Loire to the south and the Vilaine to the north. Apparently the town drew many artists to paint and there were many examples of specific works standing at the sites where the artist must have been to capture the scene. I tried to photo the scene of The Blue Boat by Eduardo Le Saout — did I succeed?
Le Croisic begins its real history in the 14th century with the construction of a fortress and its battlements, facing Guérande and at the same time the port becomes surrounded by a sandbank. Le Croisic’s port is in full booming business in the 16th C, with all the merchant ships from the north of Europe (especially Denmark, Norway and Sweden) coming to sell wood, iron, pewter, coal, tar and fabrics. At the same time salt from the peninsula is becoming more and more popular, all the way from Spain to Ireland. The local middle class runs the city as a small republic, avoiding the danger of being too dependent on this product. On discovering the cod market as well as sardine and herring in Newfoundland they equip their fishing vessels.
The harbor is still full of fishing and pleasure boats, and as I’m there during low tide I discover lots of people on the beach digging for mussels, and some on the pier net casting for some little tiny sliver fish that I assumed were sardines. I asked the couple who I watched with this effort if they were sardines, but I didn’t understand their answer, but I guess they could’ve said anchovies. I found my bliss walking out to a point where there was a lighthouse and then foraging at the low tide line for beach treasures — little shells and loads of sea glass!
Of course I discovered the church — The Church of Our Lady of Pity — which dates from the end of the 15th and beginning of the 16thC. It is in the flamboyant gothic style, built of granite with limestone vaulting. It is asymmetric, almost square, which is unusual in itself. And there were two wooden ships hanging over the choir which was equally unusual. At the back of the church I found a statue of St. James dressed as a pilgrim — Le Croisic was a stage not eh way to Compostella in Spain for pilgrims from Brittany. I’d seen many of these likenesses during my walk across Spain to Santiago.
On the drive back I stopped to see the salt marshes close up. There were workmen in one, doing the raking necessary to keep the process going. The salina is the name given to the marshes, where with skill and expertise the salt-worker carefully manages the water level in the various basins. The technique still used today dates back to before the IXth century. At least five salinas dating back to the Carolingian period are still in use today in the salt marshes of Guérande. At each high tide the ‘paludier’ opens a sluice gate to fill the first basin of the evaporation circuit, which acts as a reservoir in between the tides. As its name suggests it also acts a decantation pool, where the particles in suspension, mixed up in the sea water, can settle. With the help of the constant and gentle slope the sea water passes effortlessly into the evaporation basins which act as daily holding ponds which supply the last basins where the salt harvest takes place. Quite impressive and so important to the history and economy of the region. I bought some of course.
And then there were the ruins of a chapel built by some salt workers, which had it’s roof blown off in a gale, so it was abandoned. There’s just something about old ruins that are almost better than the churches that still stand!
And that was Friday.
Pretty good recreation of artwork! Again, the windows are stunning!