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 | Guerande Downtown car rental - Travel Guide |  |
On the edge of the marshes of the Grande-Brière, just before you come to the sea, is the tiny, gorgeous walled town of GUÉRANDE. Guérande gave its name to this peninsula, and derived its fortune from controlling the salt pans that form a chequerboard across the surrounding inlets. This "white country" is composed of bizarre-looking oeillets , each 70 to 80 square meters in extent, in which sea water, since Roman times, has been collected and evaporated.
Guérande today is still entirely enclosed by its stout fifteenth-century ramparts. Although you can't walk along them, a spacious promenade leads right the way around the outside, passing four fortified gateways; for half its length the broad old moat remains filled with water. The main entrance, the Porte St-Michel on the east side of town, now holds a small museum of local history (daily: April-Sept 10am-12.30pm & 2.30-7pm; Oct 10am-noon & 2-6pm; 20F/?3.05).
Guérande's tourist office is just outside the Porte St-Michel at 1 place du Marché au Bois (July & Aug Mon-Sat 9.30am-7pm, Sun 10am-1pm; rest of year Mon-Sat 9.30am-12.30pm & 1.30-6pm; tel 02.40.24.96.71, office.tourisme.guerande@wanadoo.fr ). Tucked out of sight behind the market, the pretty Roc-Maria, 1 rue des Halles (tel 02.40.24.90.51; 220-300F/?34-46; closed mid-Nov to mid-Dec, plus Wed & Thurs in low season), offers cosy rooms above a crêperie in a fifteenth-century town house. Opposite the Porte Vannetoise and the most impressive stretch of ramparts, to the north, the Hôtel des Voyageurs , 1 place du 8 Mai 1945 (tel 02.40.24.90.13; 220-300F/?34-46; hotel closed Sun evening & Mon in low season, restaurant closed Oct-March), is a logis serving good menus from 102F/?15.55. |
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