La Rochelle Self Guided Tour of Salt and Slave Ships

4.5 (2 reviews) La Rochelle, France
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Duration2h - 3h
Free cancellationFull refund up to 24 hours before
Instant confirmationYour booking is confirmed right away
TicketMobile or paper ticket accepted
LanguagesGerman, Russian, Portuguese, English, Italian, Polish, French, Dutch, Spanish
Private tourOnly your group will participate

Overview

Inside a grand merchant mansion sits a bronze tribute to an enslaved man born on the island that enriched this city. The mayor framed it as La Rochelle making peace with its past. Beyond the postcard-perfect harbour and its iconic twin towers lies a deeper story: as one of France’s major slave-trading ports, this audio tour invites you to explore both sides of its history.
This self-guided audio walking tour of La Rochelle follows a harbour that shipped salt and wine out as white gold, then grew fat on the triangular slave trade. You'll stand where a mayor drove his dagger into the council table rather than surrender, trace a Templar fleet that vanished one night with its treasure, and meet a ruined merchant whose lost ships came home laden with gold.
Press play at 19 stops. Walk at your own pace, no fixed start time, no group to follow, with offline audio in your choice of language.
Over 25,000 travelers have used our self-guided tours, and every tour comes with a refund guarantee.

What's included

  • 1-year access to audio on iOS & Android. Listen to the tour anytime, as many times as you like
  • Audio and written guide included
  • 100% Satisfaction Guarantee: If you don’t love the tour, write to us for a full refund
  • Offline access to the tour (no internet connection needed) once tour is downloaded
  • Images to identify stops and in app interactive map for navigation
  • Any physical devices or headphones
  • Human tour guide at location

What to expect

  1. Pass by
    Stand at the tower that sealed the harbour shut, until the day it blew its own roof off
  2. 12m
    Look out over the water where a cardinal built a mile of stone to starve a city
  3. Porte de la Grosse-Horloge
    8m
    Pass beneath the grand clock tower that began life as the city's most guarded gateway
  4. 8m
    Step into the Templar compound whose treasure fleet slipped out one night and was never found
  5. 10m
    Find the single tower that survived every fire, siege, and demolition this church suffered
  6. 10m
    Encounter the faith this whole city was punished for, and a pulpit built to vanish
  7. Pass by
    Uncover the council table a starving mayor stabbed sooner than let anyone say surrender
  8. Maison Henri II
    6m
    Notice the magnificent facade hiding almost no house at all behind its carved stone
  9. Le Bunker de La Rochelle
    Pass by
    Pause at an ordinary door concealing a war bunker the size of a house
  10. 12m
    Follow your nose into the covered market for oysters, mussels, and potatoes worth their own appellation
  11. New World Museum (Musee du Nouveau-Monde)
    Pass by
    See where a slave-trade fortune now shares its courtyard with a freed slave cast in bronze
  12. 12m
    Decode a cathedral built as revenge, right on the ground its rival once stood
  13. Place de verdun
    12m
    Cross a plain car park sitting on the buried foundations of a vanished royal castle
  14. 10m
    Trace the street named for a merchant who begged in the gutter before his ships came home
  15. 8m
    Count the carved heads of great physicians studding a house named for the wrong doctor
  16. Hotel de la Bourse
    8m
    Search the courtyard of the old merchants' exchange for the compass rose underfoot
  17. La Rue De L'escale
    12m
    Walk the last cobbled street, paved with ballast stones ships hauled across the ocean
  18. Pass by
    Read the six hundred carvings prisoners scratched into a lighthouse turned three-century jail
  19. Porte des Deux Moulins
    10m
    Finish at the gate in the walls a king built so this city could never rebel again

Meeting and pickup

Meeting point

This is a self-guided audio tour on the "Tourific self-guided tours" app. To activate the tour, check your email for instructions from Tourific or your booking platform sent right after booking. Can't find it? Search for "Tourific" in your email inbox and spam folder OR contact us via support.

End point

Additional information

  • Service animals allowed
  • Public transportation options are available nearby
  • Suitable for all physical fitness levels

Cancellation policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Reviews

4.5 (2)
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