Passage Du Gois: the road that floods twice every day

Picture courtesy: Florian Pepellin, 2010

Welcome to Passage du Gois: the road that floods twice a day.


The passage du Gois is located between the island of Noirmoutier and the beautiful coast of Beauvoir-sur-Mer in the atlantic coast region of France.


The passage is notoriously known to flood twice daily as tides rise.


This passage way is 4.125 Kilometers long (2.6 mi).


Courtesy: Marc Ryckaert, 2017

Since the road floods twice within 24 hours, it is usually sealed off most of the time except for short intervals when motorists can ply the route.


When the water levels begin to rise, the passage way could be covered by as much as 13-foot harsh waves.


You wanna know what makes this road deadly? Try standing in the middle of the passage way when water levels begin to rise.


Before you could run to the safe ends of the road, you would likely have been immersed in water.


Authorities have put up special sign posts and indicators at the passage way in order to warn users when the water levels start rising.

Courtesy: Patrick Despoix, 2014

However, people tend to disobey these warning signs and almost yearly, road users become trapped in the rising tides and sometimes they even lose their lives.


These occasional sad events have even prompted French authorities to install elevated rescue towers unto which stranded road users can climb until the water levels return to normal.


This strange passageway has attracted so much attention that it has even been used twice as a race course for Tour de France bicycle race in 1999 and 2011.


The next time you visit France, I hope you wouldn’t mind visiting the Passage du Gois?

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