La Tremblade travel guide

La Tremblade is a port town and seaside resort on the Arvert peninsula in Charente-Maritime, southwestern France. This small town with about 4,500 inhabitants (about 10,000 when including the surrounding villages), and famous for its flat oysters just like the surrounding Marennes-Oléron region.

Understand

Street scene with the bell tower of Sacre Coeur church rising above the rest of town (Photo: FrenchCobber, CC BY-SA 3.0)

La Tremblade is in the southwest of Charente-Maritime, covering the western end of the Arvert Peninsula between the Gironde and Seudre estuaries. It's part of the greater Royan area, itself forming a municipality that also includes the villages of Arvert, Étaules and Chaillevette and the surrounds, and faces the town of Marennes. Two sectors dominate the economy: on one hand fishing and oyster farming, and on the other hand beach and ecotourism (during the summer the population more than doubles).

Part of the Marennes-Oléron oyster basin (bassin ostréicole de Marennes-Oléron), which is one of the biggest in Europe, the nearby Port of La Grève is France's most important oyster port. It's a 2 km long canal next to the Seudre River with small barges (bâtas and plates), and thousands of hectares of clear ripening basins where oysters get their unique colour and flavour. Indeed, they may have the appearance of rice fields when they're sparkling in the sun.

The western part of the municipality, facing the Atlantic, has a different character. Until the early 19th century it consisted of vast sand dunes. Then thousands and thousands of pines were planted, and now much of it comprises the Coubre state forest, 8000 hectares in size and part of a set of coastal pine forests continuing south across the Gironde and northwest. There's a dense network of paths in the forest for walks in the green, the coastline of 20 km which retains the white sand dunes is great for sunbathing and the waves coming in is great for surfing and to some extent swimming (one has to be careful as the currents can be strong).

History

The baptismal fonts of the ancien priory Notre-Dame de Buze, now in the church of Les Mathes (Photo: Dimimis, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Unlike some other parts of Charente-Maritime, the peninsula hasn't been inhabited since prehistory. In the Middle Ages the thick forest and wild coast was administratively lands of different monastic communities by the lords of Mornac - Aléard and Gombeau.

The Clunian community settled in the southwest of the present municipality near a pond connected to the Atlantic by the Barrachois Canal, founding the Notre-Dame de Buze priory with many buildings. Further north, the monks of the Order of Grandmont founded the priories of Notre-Dame de La Garde and Notre-Dame de La Couronne. The religious communities also started cultivating the land, and eventually a small village named Trembledam emerged around the La Garde priory. Named after the French word for aspen (tremble), a common tree around here, this marked the beginning of La Tremblade. Its port became important for exporting wheat, wine, but especially salt and was frequented by merchants from all over Europe.

With relatively strong connections to Northern Europe through sailors and merchants, the Protestant Reformation gained a foothold here during the 16th century. As such, the French Wars of Religion had a major on the region with the aforementioned priories being sacked, burned and abandoned.

With the end of the wars, La Tremblade became a major port. From here, ships departed to the colonies of New France in North America, as well as to Africa, and shipyards were set up. Moreover, the oyster farming which the region is known for today was started around 1650. The green oysters of Isles d'Arvert were prized by the nobility and the French king alike. Nevertheless the counter-reformation struck hard on the region around the 1680s and many Protestants had to flee to England and the Netherlands.

La Tremblade became a parish in the 18th century, the seigneurial house of the barony of Arvert was moved there in 1758 and the city became the cantonal capital during the French Revolution. Now several new buildings were erected, together with infrastructure modern for its time.

The city became a sea resort during the 1860s – first a sea villa was built by a certain Joseph-Édouard Perraudeau, then many more would follow, making La Tremblade a tourist destination which it still is. During WWII, the town became a German stronghold and was bombed by the Allies multiple times and burned by the Germans when they left. After the war, it was rebuilt and continued functioning as a resort town.

Climate

Ronce-les-Bains, a beach resort a few kilometers north of La Tremblade town. In the background the Seurne River estuary is visible and the westernmost bridge across it (Photo: Cobber17, CC BY 3.0)

La Tremblade has an oceanic climate of the Aquitaine type, with a microclimate that's more Mediterranean which means maritime pines, green oaks, olive trees, mimosas, eucalyptus, agaves and the like thrive here. There are 2250 hours of sunshine a year. Yearly rain is generally around 750-800 mm, and droughts aren't unheard of especially during the hotter months.

Winds generally come in from the west (the Atlantic), meaning warm breezes in the summer but much stronger winds in the autumn and winter; a few times every century a big storm hits the region such as in January 1924 and December 1999.

Tourist information

• Office du Tourisme - Bureau de La Tremblade, 1 boulevard Pasteur (downtown), ☏ +33 5 46 36 37 71, ot@la-tremblade.com. The main tourist office.
• Office du Tourisme - Bureau de Ronce-les-Bains, Place Brochard (Place Brochard), ☏ +33 5 46 36 06 02, ot@ronce-les-bains.com. price=. The tourist office in Ronce-les-Bains.

Get in

By car

The main roads in La Tremblade are the D14, D25 and D728e. D14 comes in from Arvert and Étaules (connecting to Royan) and Saujon, where it connects to the N150 coming in from Saintes and the A10 autoroute between Paris and Bordeaux. D25 is a bypass on the town's western side, and it comes in from Royan going along the coast to La Palmyre and through the State Forest of Coubre. D728e comes in from Marennes-Hiers-Brouage across the Seudre River, and Marennes has roads in from Saintes (D728), Rochefort (D123 and D733) and Île d'Oléron (D26)

By train

La Tremblade's railway station is just served by the tourist train Le train des mouettes. The closest railway stations with scheduled service are in Saujon and Royan are about 20 km away. They're served by the local TER Poitou-Charentes network.

By plane

There are general aviation fields in Marennes and Royan. The closest passenger airports are in Bordeaux (115 km south) and La Rochelle (55 km north).

By bus

Intercity buses don't go to La Tremblade, just to Rochefort (25 km away) and Saintes (40 km away).
The departmental Cara-bus has bus lines to La Tremblade, most importantly lines 6 and 115 from Royan.

By bike

La Tremblade is on the long distance biking route EuroVelo 1 between Norway and Portugal, following the coast.

Get around

Buses like these go around the region (Photo: Cobber17, CC BY-SA 3.0)

By public transport

The local Cara bus network connects to nearby towns and villages (see link in Get in above). In July and August the free tourist train La coquille filante takes you from downtown to Ronce-les-Bains (morning) and Port de La Grève (afternoon)

By car

Getting in and around the town and municipality by car is usually hassle-free around the year. The exception would be the seaside hamlet of Ronce-les-Bains which gets busy in July and August. Parking is free around town and at the beaches, and again, it can be difficult to find a vacant spot during the busier summer months.

See

Coubre Lighthouse - with a height of 64 m it's the highest in Charente-Maritime (Photo: Damien Joussemet, CC BY-SA 4.0)

• Coubre lighthouse (Phare de la Coubre), ☏ +33 5 46 06 26 42, pharedelacoubre@latremblade.fr. The red and white lighthouse near the Pointe de la Coubre sits on moving sandbanks watching over the incoming waves of the ocean. Built in 1904, it's not the first lighthouse here, but earlier construction have fallen victim to erosion. When the lighthouse was finished it was almost 2 km from the coastline, now it is just 150 m away. You can walk 300 steps up to the viewing platform to views of tens of kilometres including the Coubre Forest, the Gironde estuary, Île d'Oléron and the Côte Sauvage. Next to the lighthouse is a museum about the lighthouses that have functioned here and their equipment (admission is included in the ticket to the lighthouse). On

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