Brouage

On the southwestern coast of France, near Rochefort, lies a gem of a town, Brouage - which is entirely surrounded by marshlands and is completely walled-in. It started out as a commercial port - with the principal trade being salt in the 15th century. Through the years it was home to Henry IV (before he was crowned king), ruled by Governor Cardinal Richelieu and saw the birth and childhood of Samuel de Champlain within it's walls. We visited this town last fall when our friend, Janell was staying with us and I am just now finally getting around to posting the photos! Enjoy!

The photo below shows the wall as the dark black lines and the streets, which are actually on grid (anyone familiar with towns in France, knows how rare this must be):

The walls are wide enough to allow for a lovely path around the perimeter of the town, affording gorgeous views of the marshlands:

Look-out posts occur every so often and originally would have allowed for pretty good shelter from the elements, while being able to still see a good distance. Based on the hurricane force winds (okay, maybe gale force), this must have been a pretty valued feature:

In the next two shots, Bo and Vivi provide a good visual to judge the scale of this structure:



I have only one photo from inside the walls. That's probably because from inside, it looks like any other French town to me!