Bike tour 'Salt' with Gilde De Baronie

Nowadays, salt is cheap and easy to buy. But in the Middle Ages, salt was very valuable. Nonetheless, people needed it badly, for example, to preserve meat, fish, and vegetables longer. There were various ways to obtain salt. One of them was extracting salt from peat.

Some sections of peat (turf) along the coast were soaked with salt seawater. If you burned that peat, ash remained containing salt. This ash was then mixed with water or seawater. The salt dissolved in the water, while sand and silt sank to the bottom. Pieces of unburned peat floated on top of the water. These were carefully skimmed off because they contained almost no salt anymore.

The saline water (brine) was then heated until the water evaporated and the salt remained. This way, pure salt was eventually obtained.

Salt is the common thread during this cycling tour, and you will cycle north of Breda. Since the Ice Age, peat has formed in these areas. In some places, the peat layer was up to three meters thick. The peat was excavated and dried to produce fuel, called turf. Later, salt was also extracted from it.

Salt has been very important throughout the centuries. That is why people said: “Salt is gold”.

You register yourself and buy your ticket on the day itself at the starting point. This time, it is at Intratuin in Breda