The Salins du Midi salt company in Aigues-Mortes is open to the public and organises tours (in a sightseeing train, electric vehicle or on a mountain bike) to help you understand the workings of a salt marsh as well to discover the flora and fauna of this exceptional environment. At the salt museum you will find out about salt mining and the salt workers' lives over the centuries.
Each year, Aigues-Mortes produces 500,000 tons of salt, making it a worldwide benchmark.
In the Camargue, salt can be found widely in the soil, and the nature of the flat and clayey land, dotted with ponds, lends itself well to the extraction of sea salt. It is also a region where evaporation is the most intense and rainfall the weakest.
The salt production in Aigues-Mortes goes back to Antiquity. Peccius, a Roman engineer at the start of the Christian Era, was put in charge of organising salt production.
In 1856, the different salt marsh owners united to found the Salins du Midi (Saltworks of the South).
With the development of the chemical industry, salt production became one of the biggest activities in the Camargue; chlorine and soda, salt extracts, enter into the composition of many chemical and pharmaceutical products. The preconcentration and evaporation basins of Salin-de-Giraud cover 14,000 hectares.
The salt marshes of Aigues-Mortes are devoted to the production of quality sea-salt, essentially destined for the food trade.
The colouring, water rose, is linked to the proliferation of micro-organisms of a microscopic algae variety called "dunaliella salina".
On the salt marshes of Aigues-Mortes, the exploitation of l'Artemia Salina complements the salt producing activities. Artemia constitutes quality feed for fish and crustaceans.
In the continuation of the guilds of master saltworkers (12th century), the Brotherhood of Sea Salt takes up tradition's torch and carries on the sublimation of one of the most indispensable products in Man's life, which in addition to its gastronomic virtues, conveys symbolic spiritual and universal values.
The Whale
Old illustration of the Salins du Midi salt company of Aigues-Mortes
Birds of Salins
Working on a mountain of extracted salt
The workers transported the salt in baskets, 20 kilos for the women, 40 for the men, 1913
Wheelbarrows replaced the traditional baskets for transporting the salt, 1925
Archaeological discovery of Salins
Touch discovery of salt
Maps of Salins
Packaging of the whale over the years
Packaging of the whale over the years
The ramparts of Aigues-Mortes from Salins
The pink colour of the salt marshes
Pink flamingos in the Camargue
Mountain of salt at the salt marshes of Aigues Mortes
The mountain of salt
Mountains of salt
Mountains of salt and machines
Salt harvesters
Salt washing
Salt conditioning
climbing the mountain of salt
climbing the mountain of salt
La fleur de sel
A Gardian cabin
Sunset on the Salins
Landscape of the Salins
The colors of the Salins
Visit of the Salins
Les Salins du Midi - Étang du Roi - 30220 Aigues-Mortes
+33 (0)4 66 73 40 24
http://www.visitesalinsdecamargue.com