The salt of île d'Oléron

During the heat wave, we've decided to cycle to the salty marshes not far from St Trojan. Our initial aim was the ones closer to Boyardville, but due to the heat, we've decided to chose an area closer to the hotel. I always buy salt of île de Ré when we are in Fouras, believing it is the best salt (and having difficulty to find it in the shops in Reims).  I've stocked up on our salt by buying 3 pots just before leaving to île d'Oléron, so no need to buy salt, but an interesting trip.



We were not aware that this is the salt museum. We've seen it from the cycling road and stopped for a photo - to realise shortly after that it is the arrival point of the cycling road where you can visit the museum and have a guided tour of the salt pans.

On our arrival at the salt museum, we've seen some boats and decided to row through the salty marshes.

There were two bridges to pass, quite complicated as the one who has to row cannot see behind him. Easy to see who is rowing and who is giving orders, isn't it?

Back at the starting point (it is a circle route) - you can see the colourful cabins behind that were converted into an excellent restaurant. Unfortunately they were closed for the day and when we phoned a few days later to book, they were fully booked. it will have to wait for another visit!

Below: some colourful boats at the starting point

Above: the museum and

Below: the real salt pans

 The area has an interesting history.  The salt industry commenced during the time of the Romans.  As this was mainly a Protestant area, the persecution of the Protestants severely influenced the salt industry during the 1600's.  In 1660 there were about 60 Protestant churches from Royan to Rochefort (significant if you think that by road it is a distance of about 50km) - and that was south of La Rochelle which was a very big Protestant stronghold.  The persecution caused the Protestants to leave the area.  The immigration was prohibited in 1687, due to the damage it started to cause the salt industry (and coffers of government), but the Protestants continued to flee, illegally.  This was unfortunately the beginning of the decline of the salt industry.  Salt from Spain and Portugal started to win field in the markets and by the 1980's, 300 years later, the salt industry died its final death in île d'Oléron.  Fortunatey the community revived it by the 1990's, as part of its heritage and today it is thriving again.  The salt worker renting the salt pans above from the community produces about 30 t of salt per year - enough to make a living of.  However, it is hard work, comprising working days of 10-14 hours/day.  The harvesting takes place during the summer months (3 months) and the rest of the time is used for cleaning and protecting the salt pans.

There are two types of salt - fleur de sel, which is the top layer of very fine salt, and the big salt, which contains all the minerals. The colour of the salt is influenced by the colour of the soil.

The islanders do not add salt to their food, as their vegetables grown on the island already contains quite a bit of salt.  Salicornia grows in these salty marshes (a salt resistant plant) and used by them in their salads. We could taste a small piece during the visit - not bad.

All along the west coast (and the rest of France, although to a lesser extent than here) you'll find the caramel sweets with salt in as well as pancakes with a caramel salt sauce, really good! We've got a recipe that day of our visit. As I haven't tried it yet, I cannot guarantee the success, but you have nothing to loose by trying it: (use a good quality salt though!)

Crème de caramel à la fleur de sel:

for an average size pot:

200g sugar

2 table spoons water

200 ml cream

20 g butter

a pinch of salt

Boil the cream in a casserole. Cut the butter in cubes. At the same time, in a casserole, bring the water and sugar to boil without stirring until it is an amber colour. Remove from the stove.

Stir the butter into the water/sugar mixture with a wooden spatula (not on the stove), add the fleur de sel, then add the boiling cream.  Bring all to boil and boil slowly for 2-3 min. Remove from the stove and then pour into pot. Leave to cool down before conserving it in the fridge (if not eating while hot...).

JL insists that I make us some pancakes now, to try the sauce on it, before giving the recipe to you, but his luck is out and you prepare it on own risk...!

 

Le Château's oyster festival (summer holiday 4)

No, not a château, but the name of one of the towns on île d'Oléron (at least not another saint), although it does have its château. Like the other towns and villages, Le Château had its festival too, the theme being an oyster festival, with music and to be followed by a fireworks display.  You can move around between these towns and villages and attend a show every night of the week and watch fireworks at each.  It all contributes to the feeling of summer and holiday.  As JL likes oysters, we've decided to go to the oyster festival.  Remembering the parking problem we had at the fête of St Trojan, we've arrived early, at about 6 pm (the ads were saying it starts at about 5pm).  Easy to find parking, but not much happening yet.  After strolling through the port and down the street leading to the festival, lined with stands manned by artists or crêperies, we sat down for an orangina at a restaurant bordering the entrance to the oyster festival.  Not long after our arrival the lady in the photo below arrived, to set up her table. Curious to see what she sells we've eventually figured out she paints on people's bodies, like a temporary tattoo. We've started analysing her stand, her approach to the people and eventually, laughing, said that we should go and give her some advice, with an invoice from our recently established consulting company (not that we did that, but I think we must have unnerved her a bit looking at her stand, because, when we went back later for a pancake, she left the table for a smoke break, only to return when a German family with 5 daughters arrived for business).

You could buy tickets for oysters, mussels, chips, wine, pineau de Charente. These tickets you then hand in at the relevant table where you receive your tray with the food and could stand at one of the many tables that were prepared (no chairs to sit down).  The mussels were prepared in two ways - moules mariné (marinated in white wine) or églade (a way I didn't know at all, prepared by burning it in a fire with pine needles). As I had no idea what the églade will taste like, I thought to play it safe and ordered the moules mariné.  We were quite disappointed. JL's oysters were not cold, my mussels were small, the wine was bad.

To explain to you the églade: the mussels are all packed into a tray.

Then packed on the ground and covered with pine needles.

 Above: can you spot the mussels?

Below: then the pine needles are set alight

Once the needles have died, the ashes are blown off and the mussels are put on a tray to serve

Once again, we had a good laugh, as the management was not so good. At the beginning there were not so many people as it was still early, so they could cope with the demand, but later the queue got longer and they took quite a while before realising to burn all three groups at the same time (after we were considering to give our advice and before doing that, a guy with grey hair, proof of the experience, ordered the younger guys to get going and prepare all simutaneously)

After our early meal, we took a stroll through the cabins of the oyster farmers.  Many of these are nowadays converted into artists' shops.  Some are in a sorry state, still waiting for an owner to give them some TLC.  Below: a typical oyster boat.

The colourful cabins make a pretty picture, I think some are more functional for photographers than anything else, like the boat below!

Some of the artist shops. The one below is called Polka.

Back at the oyster festival, as I wanted to see the fireworks display later that evening, we stroll along the stands, had a pancake and coffee and eventually walked to the other side, where the château is.

We have figured out by then that the fireworks will be launched from the château. The fête at St Trojan was so well organised, you knew exactly when the time is for the concert and when the fireworks will start. Not at Le Château. So we guessed it would be the same time than at St Trojan. Alas, 10pm came and went, the wind got cold, the mosquitoes attacked us, 10.30 pm came and went and then we decided we had enough of waiting. Halfway to the car, along with many other people who decided enough is enough (so much so that people arriving were asking whether the fireworks display had finished), we've heard the first bang. Turning around in the street we could see red smoke spilling over the castle walls, like we've seen on television at Carcassonne, famous for their 14 July firework display. Alas, the rest of the show was pretty much a repeat of the one at St Trojan.
For the first time I've been a bit deceived by a French fête; much to JL's relieve as he was starting to get tired of his SA wife who wants to attend every possible French fête and fireworks display!!

Summer holiday 3

We've stayed on the south-western part of île d'Oléron - blessed with many long sandy beaches within reach of cycling.  The huge stretch of beach (all parts not accessible to the public, hence broken up in different beaches) started south of Saint-Trojan (jip, one more saint) at Plage de Gatseau, pass the Pointe de Maumusson, where a tourist train can drop you just north of the point, and continues along the western side of the island until just south of La Cotinière.  One can also walk from Plage de Gatseau to the point where the train drops people at the beach, which is what JL decided we'll do the one day - during the heat wave.  Below: the forest at Plage de Gatseau, our starting point.  All across the island you get the scent of pine trees.

Between low and high tide you have a difference of 6m.  This being an area where 50% of France's oysters are produced, you'll always find people during low tide searching for oysters and other kinds of shells.

While walking through the forest one still have a view on the beach, so I could take a photo of 2 men who had a good harvest of seafood...

Eventually the sand became difficult to walk on and we started to follow the railway line (at least the train warns you when arriving, not that you cannot hear it coming! it is very eco-friendly, being operated on recycled cooking oil)

The beautiful long beach, not too many people, good waves and hot water. On the far end people were playing with char à voile - it has wheels and a sail, with one or two seats in and you can drive it along the beach (we wanted to do it, but the holiday was a bit too short for all!)

I was complaining so much by the time that we've arrived at the beach due to the heat (we had no hats and it was one of those days you needed one when out in the sun!) and the difficulty to walk in the sand, that we bought a train ticket to go back to Plage de Gatseau after spending some time at the beach.  Below is not the train though (I think it is an older version), it is the small take-away shop where you can buy food and drinks, with some wooden table and benches to sit down.  The train stops opposite it and turn around the restaurant to go back.

Arriving at Plage de Gatseau we've decided to go to St Trojan to find lunch and orangina, their popular orange cooldrink, with a bit of a fizz, but not too much, and very refreshing. We've arrived in a ghost town, as the shops all shut down for a looong lunch (that is the town centre, the restaurants around the port are all busy) and found a friendly café in the main street, with its huge Captain Hook in the corner (checking if people pay before they leave?)

Going for a picnic on the beach close to the hotel at sunset

Between the hotel where we've stayed and the beach was a few houses and then a forest. We could pass the houses by a narrow path, taking us directly into the forest from where we could access the beach.  Even though the typical Charente houses are white with colourful shutters, you find some stone houses as well (some old, some new). This was a beautiful house, looking relatively new, and as you can guess, these type of houses are not cheap to build, so no surprise that the car's number plate indicated the owners to be Parisian

Summer holiday 2

Maybe the order won't make sense to you, but unfortunately I don't have time to group the photo's according to themes!

The dunes are protected all along the coast, so instead of build-up beaches you have beaches with the feeling of wild nature, I love it

Below: some beaches, like this one, you can only access by foot or by bicycle.  We were there early in the morning - if you arrive later the bicycles are piled up along the protective fences and you have to search for a parking spot!

Many of them have schools teaching people to surf/kite-surf/whatever!

Like in other areas along the west coast the ugly bunkers from WWII remind you of the time when this area was occupied by the Nazi's

Below: during our holiday France had a major heatwave. I was just too happy to have summer, hence no complaint! But we've realised some days were too hot to go cycling and explored the villages more north on the island by car. I took some photo's whle driving to give you an idea what it looks like - there are many forests, oyster farms (salty marshes), vineyards, maize and wheat. In short - beaches, cycling, agriculture and aquaculture, that's what you can expect!

I love the old stone walls you see so often in France, this one hiding an old building behind that looked like it could have belonged to a rich lord

Above and below; the garden of the phare de Chassiron (the northern point of the island) is landscaped in the shape of a compass (on an aerial photo it looks like a compass surrounding the lighthouse). We didn't visit the lighthouse or its museum, as we did a lot of cycling earlier in the morning before the worst heat and thought it prudent to save our bums.

Not the sandy beaches you find further south, one can see the reason why they chose this spot for the lighthouse!

From the north we've followed the east coast, first stopping at Saint Denis (no, don't ask me how many towns/villages in France starts with Saint or Sainte - far too many in my opinion!!!!)

It has an important school for yachting, along with other water sport, but we were surprised to see the busy beach!

The colourful beach cabins reminded me of those in Muizenberg

On the water it was just as busy with windsurfers, kayaks, yachts, etc

And below: the little harbour

Along the harbour your have benches where you can sit down in more tranquillity than on the beach

Above: another small harbour just south of Saint Denis - with a fisherman trying to catch his fish of the day

Below: and another long sandy beach, a bit further south at La Brée les Bains (where a freak thunderbolt a few days later landed two ladies in the hospital, fortunately it was reported a few days  later that they were fine)

Above: see what I mean with the 'wild' look along the beaches?

Below: the ghost town of Saint-Georges (the fact that we could find parking quite easily should have been a warning) - there are beautiful buildings, some resembling old châteaux that can tell stories of days in the past when wealthy owners (oyster farmers, salt owners, Huguenots?) lived there, a shady square where you can play pétanque (yes, still a very popular game in France, played by all ages). The one restaurant was fully book,  the other one didn't interest us, so as I was cursing my stinging attackers, we've escaped to Saint-Pierre, the capital of the island

Below: arriving in Saint-Pierre - proof of the heatwave and summer, blue sky at 20.04 and the temp in the shade measured at 29°!