Country:
District:
Parking is available at the Côte de Monportail car park, south-west of the village of Saint-Froult.
Brown arrows (Sentier des Lais de Mer)
(S/E) Leave the circular car park and cross the small access road to find a signpost indicating the trails and a map of the area. Take the trail heading south. At two closely spaced forks, take the right-hand trail each time. Go through a gate and follow the fence on your right. Cross a wooden pontoon and you will come to a T-junction with a tiled-roof house on your left (La Grange à Noureau).
(1) Turn right (towards "Plateforme"), go through another gate and you will soon reach an observation platform (damaged in January 2016) and Plaisance beach.
(2) Retrace your steps to the previous junction.
Green arrows (Sentier des Polders)
(1) Continue straight ahead (east) along a pond on your left. Go through a gate, take a footbridge over a small canal and you will come out onto a small road. Turn right and follow the road for about 250 metres.
(3) Before reaching the houses on your 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 ahead (south-west) on the gravel path, alongside ponds on your right, ignoring the paths branching off to the right. When you reach a barrier marked "Réserve de Moëze-Oléron / Interdit" (Moëze-Oléron Reserve / No Entry), turn right, cross a footbridge and go through a gate. Walk between two ponds, then turn left to enter the observatory (door in the middle of the fence).
(5) When you leave the observatory, continue straight ahead (do not take the path on the right that you took on the way there) and walk between two ponds. Take a footbridge and then make a first turn right then left to continue between two ponds. Go through a gate, take a footbridge and turn right immediately to rejoin the gravel path you took on the way there. Turn left and you will immediately reach the Plaisance crossroads.
(4) Leave the gravel path on your right and take the grassy path along the small canal in the opposite direction to the one you took on the way there.
(3) Continue along the small road and take the footbridge on the left before the Grange à Noureau.
Brown arrows (Sentier des Lais de Mer)
(1) At the corner of the pond, turn right and follow the same path as on the way there to return to the starting point.
Visorando member
Moderate 
