Parking is available at the Côte de Monportail car park, south-west of the village of Saint-Froult.
Arrows on a brown background (Sentier des Lais de Mer)
(S/E) Leave the roundabout car park and cross the small access road to find a signpost indicating the trails and a map of the area. Take the path heading south. At two closely spaced forks in the road, take the right-hand path each time. Go through a gate and follow the fence on your right. Cross a wooden jetty and arrive at a T-junction with a tiled-roof house on the left (La Grange à Noureau).
(1) Turn right (towards “Plateforme”), go through another gate and you’ll soon reach a viewing platform (damaged in January 2016) and Plaisance beach.
(2) Retrace your steps back to the previous junction.
Arrows on a green background (Sentier des Polders)
(1) Continue straight ahead (eastwards), skirting a pond on your left. Go through a gate, take a footbridge over a small canal and come out onto a small road. Turn right and follow the road for about 250 metres.
(3) Before reaching the houses on the left, leave the road, go through a gate and turn right onto a grassy path that runs alongside the small canal on your right. When you reach the houses (Ferme de Plaisance), join a gravel path coming from the left.
(4) Continue straight on (south-west) along the gravel path, with ponds on your right, ignoring any turn-offs to the right. When you reach a gate marked ‘Réserve de Moëze-Oléron / Interdit’, turn right, cross a footbridge and go through a gate. Walk between two ponds, then turn left to enter the observatory (gate in the middle of the fence).
(5) On leaving the observatory, carry on straight ahead (do not take the path to the right that you took on the way there) and walk between two ponds. Cross a footbridge, then make a right-left zigzag to continue between two ponds. Go through a gate, cross a footbridge and turn immediately right to rejoin the gravel path you took on the way there. Turn left and you’ll immediately reach the Plaisance junction.
(4) Let the gravel path branch off to the right and follow the grassy path along the small canal in the opposite direction to your outward journey.
(3) Continue along the small road and take the footbridge on the left before the Grange à Noureau.
Arrows on a brown background (Sentier des Lais de Mer)
(1) At the corner of the pond, turn right and, following the same path as on the way out, return to the starting point.