Route details
Description
Safety instructions: Wearing a helmet is strongly recommended. I drive on the right. I respect the highway code. I check the condition of my bike (brakes and lighting). I respect the marsh, a sensitive and classified site. We therefore invite you to respect nature: avoid picking flowers and plants, do not leave any trash behind, respect inhabited places.
Your itinerary
Step 1
the wet marsh is not just a landscape. This sector of the Marais Poitevin, which is often called the Green Venice, reveals itself differently, thanks to a visit to the Maison du Marais Poitevin (formerly Maison des Marais Mouillés). We understand the evolution of the territory and the attachment of market gardeners to their marsh. In just over an hour's visit, you will be able to discover our traditions through a pleasant and accessible museography. You will find 3 rooms: the bartending room, the eel room and the reconstruction of a market garden habitat. The Maraiscope will allow you to see the evolution of the Marais.
Step 2
The house with blue shutters is very often represented on postcards. It is an example of market garden houses accessible only by boat! The inhabitants had to take their boat to cross, or to take the waterways as a route. The color of the shutters is the work of one of the previous owners whose wife loved the blue shutters by the sea.
Step 3
Located on the Conche de la Belette, the communal port of Vanneau, restored as part of the Grands Travaux du Marais Poitevin, was once intended for farmers to ensure the exploitation of their marsh plots. It was forbidden to store crops for more than 24 hours on the quay so as not to hinder the coming and going of boats and carts. The last Saturday in July, the Water Market is organized where the products of individuals and traders are sold to more than 15.000 visitors! This festive event reflects one of the most unique Maraîchine traditions: the transport of men, animals and goods on the wet roads forming the Green Venice. In its extension, a metal footbridge from 1900 provides access to allotment gardens. Between rue de la Belette and the waterway, old farms with double access are lined up.
Step 4
Isolated from the town of Amuré, this natural port has a gently sloping slipway made of limestone. Built to encourage trade with Saint-Georges-de-Rex, La Garette, Le Vanneau, Coulon and Niort, it offers outlets for local production (firewood, hemp, market garden crops and fish). During the 1995th century, its activity declined due to the development of roads in the marsh. In XNUMX, it was restored as part of the Major Works of the President of the Republic.
Step 5
Sensational trip to Poitevine land. Discover an eco-responsible, fun park accessible to all. A 2-hour adventure where you will discover the local breeds of the Marais Poitevin and various unusual animals.
A puzzle trail is to be solved in order to better understand the plant and animal world. At the end, discover unique know-how in France on the manufacture of fresh, raw donkey milk soap. Learn thanks to the film From the Birth of the Donkey to Soap Making and the giant educational panel.
Step 6
This town, located on the edge of the Gulf of Pictons, is made up of 2 large villages: Sansais perched on the hillside and La Garette on the edge of the marshes. The future king Henry IV visited the latter in 1576 and later said of the Marais that...Among these deserts are a thousand gardens where one can only go by boat...La Garette is typical of traditional market garden habitat ensuring direct access to the water for every house. An important goods transit port between Bas-Poitou (north) and Saintonge (south) until the middle of the 1995th century, this village street was completely restored in XNUMX as part of Operation Grand Site. It has become a major step in discovering Green Venice. A wooden footbridge on stilts connects it to that of Coulon.