Pedaling Through France’s Shimmering Salt Flats

Cycling Through the Guérande Salt Marshes & Beyond 🌿🚴‍♂️

I want to give a huge thanks to Jules Francis and TimeToProductions for letting me us their work. I’ll leave their links down below:

Jules Francis: https://jules-francis.com/

TimeToProductions: https://www.timetoproduction.com/

Join me on a two-part cycling journey through one of France’s most fascinating landscapes — the Guérande salt marshes. These surreal, shimmering pools have been producing salt for centuries, and today I’ll dive into how they work, the traditions behind them, and the incredible bird species that call this area home.

In this video I explore the surrounding treasures:

La Petite Casquette 🏖️ — a quiet seaside spot with endless views.

Pen-Bron Pine Forest 🌲 — a peaceful green haven along the coast.

Sand dunes & hidden paths that shape this unique coastline.

A hauntingly beautiful graveyard and the historic sanatorium, which reveal another layer of the region’s story.

From salt and sea to forest and history, this ride shows why Guérande is unlike anywhere else in France. 🌊✨

👉 Don’t forget to like, subscribe, and hit the bell if you enjoy cycling adventures and want to see more!

Hey travelers, today I’ll be cycling through the stunning Giron Salt Marshes, a landscape shaped by nature and tradition. Along the way, we’ll stumble upon natural wonders, charming villages, and uncover some important historical sites that tell the story of this incredible region. Let’s ride together into discovery. [Music] We will be in the air approximately 2 hours. Welcome to the salt marshes of Giron, where earth, sea, and sky come together in a timeless dance and nature’s quiet artistry stretches to the horizon. Good evening, travelers. We’ve made it to the Gong salt marshes. Here’s a little explanation of what they are and what they do. Seaater first enters the main inlet following into long canals that guide it inland. From there it reaches the vasier where clay settles and the water begins to concentrate. The water then travels into the salt pond spreading into the sadin. Here under the sun and wind it evaporates leaving behind the famous gillon sea salt. They’re rakes and then rake the salt onto the little circles. They take the salt they put it into wheelbarrows. Everything that’s been collected will go to a pile right here. Here you have a sorting station and then will be sorted. Then we’ll put into boxes and then we’ll be taken to the warehouses. [Music] For over a thousand years, these intricate networks of basins have been shaped by human hands using techniques passed down since the medieval times. The salt known as flen was once called white gold. So prized it fueled trade and prosperity across Britney. Even today, Palugu known as salt harvesters still use traditional wooden tools to gather the precious crystals, relying on sun, wind, and tides just as their ancestors did. But these salt marshes are more than just a place of work. They’re a living ecosystem, a sanctuary for hundreds of bird species. You might spot the elegant black winged stilt with its stilt-like legs tiptoeing across the shallow waters or the elusive Eurasian spoon bill sifting the mud with its strange flat beak. Migratory birds find refuge here too. Curies, red shanks, and turns all drawn to the briny waters and abundance of life. The Gellum salt marshes are an official Natura 2000 site protected for the vital role they play in biodiversity. So whether you’re here for the salt, the scenery, or the serenity, the marshes of Giron tell a story that’s still being written, one of harmony, heritage, and the delicate balance between people and the natural world. We’re going to go left over here. Then we’re going to go towards the north. So yeah, that’s the plan. [Music] So right over there we have a town called Gilong. This is a town that owns the salt marshes and it’s also where they sell the salt. And so the salt is sold all around the world from there and it’s also shipped out. So that’s the interesting thing. So here we have the museum of the salt uh also known as and it’s also where all the sal where the salt is stored and some of it is sold from here. Now we made it to and as you can see over there we have a restaurant called La Petite Cascat and they’re very famous for their super long sausage. So me and my family sometimes would go there. Everything is going okay so far. There were just a few cars that were super close to my bike. I guess those are the locals here. Sometimes they just want to pass through cuz you’re too slow. But otherwise, I’m just listening to music and enjoying the ride. And honestly, super beautiful. It’s too bad it couldn’t be a bit sunnier. So over there is a town called Vlan. We’re not going there today. And now we’re going towards the south and we’re going to go to Pon. [Music] As you can see behind me, we’re in a pine forest. This is the uh pine forest of uh Pumbong. If we keep going this way on the road, we’ll end up at the peninsula, the end of it, and then we’re going to take a boat ride to go to another village, which is across the opening of the channel into the ocean, and then I’ll show you around that place. So, yeah. [Music] Now, as you can see, we made it to the sand dunes. They spread across like this. It’s like the longest stretch of the little peninsula we’re on right now. And yeah, it’s really beautiful. Then we are going to keep going this way. If you see that church over there, which is right there, the village we have to go to, but we have to cross the sea. And we’re going to take a boat. And the great thing is that they allow bikes on there. Before we go there, I’d like to show you something over there. Welcome to the windswept coast and dunes of Pong. Today, this serene landscape is a paradise, but hidden among the sands are echoes of a darker past. During World War II, German forces built part of the Atlantic Wall here. As you explore Ponong, you’ll find a place where nature reclaims what war once scarred. So, right now, we’re on top of one of the dunes. We can see both sides, the seaside, also the channel side. We’re about to go into a little cemetery which is in the middle of the dune. We’re going to take a walk in there. Tucked away quietly behind the dunes of Lurbal facing the salt marshes and the open sea lies the Simier de Pon, a place of silence, memory, and forgotten stories. This small cemetery holds the remains of patients from the former Palm Sanatorium, a seaside medical facility founded in the late 19th century where children and adults were treated for tuberculosis, polio, and other chronic illnesses. In an age before antibiotics, isolation was often the only treatment. Pamong was both refuge and a final resting place. Today, the cintier de Pong remains largely untouched. No grand monuments, no crowds, just the quiet presence of time, the whispers of the wind, and the enduring dignity of those who rest here. But uh we just got out of the cemetery. RIP to those who uh passed away of tuberculosis. Only uh bad news is that there’s going to be a little bit of rain, I feel. But yeah, wish me luck. Let’s make it to the shuttle. I hope they don’t cancel it because of the rain, but you know, we’ll see. If they do, then it’s the other way around. [Music] Hey travelers, I want to thank Time 2 Productions who lent me their videos on the beautiful birds of the Gil Salt Marshes. And I also want to give a thanks to my good friend Jules Francis for lending me the music on this video. I hope you like, share, subscribe. I hope you’re excited for part two.