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: Port Boinot to Niort
Former chamois factory until 2006, then National Center for Street Arts from 2010 to 2015, Le Port Boinot, in June 2020, it is between the Main and Sèvre Niortaise bridges: – A large urban park connected to the Park Natural Regional of Marais Poitevin – A variation of 6 thematic gardens – The reconversion of industrial buildings: the employer's house into a restaurant, the factory into a tourist-cultural and co-working space, the large dryer into a counter for roaming and hiking (antenna of the Tourist Office), a place of memory of chamois, the port workshops in a space dedicated to sports leisure practices (rental of bicycles and light boats) and events (contemporary art bar-expo L'ilôt savage)…
Step 2: Niort Dungeon
On the banks of the Sèvre Niortaise, stands one of the most beautiful sets of twin Romanesque dungeons in France and the first building in Niort to be classified as a Historic Monument. It formed the central recess of a vast castle in the shape of a quadrilateral 1 m long. It was the King of England, Henry II Plantagenet, who, wanting to put in a state of defense the domains that his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine brought him through her marriage, decided to have it rebuilt, at the end of the 700th century, an impregnable fortress. Labeled Museum of France. Permanent exhibition Donjon, 1000 years of history, regional archeology (from Prehistory to Roman times) and Poitevin ethnography (reconstruction of a Poitevin interior and furniture), temporary exhibitions, themed visits and workshops, digital tablets (free loan ), view from the north tower.
Step 3: La Roussille and its lock
From the Poitevin word roussea meaning both red and stream, La Roussille is the place where rouches, that is to say rushes, grow. Its lock was installed in 1394 by Duke Jean de Berry, Count of Poitou, to retain the waters of the Sèvre Niortaise in the canal and the Niort basin. It is the most important of the eight locks from Niort to Marans (Charente-Maritime) and one of the first airlock locks in France. The date of 1808 is engraved in the stone of the old lock keeper's post to recall the passage to Niort of Napoleon I who regulated navigation on the river by decree. As an extension of the current restaurant, the old barn of the lock keeper's house housed the horse used on the towpath to pull the barges on the small coastal river.
Step 4: Magné metal drawbridge
The use of the wooden bridge, built in 1853 to replace the ferry, was prohibited in 1896 following the breakage of an oak plank constituting the deck, under the passage of a heavy cart. The current metal drawbridge dating from 1901 supports a load of 10 t. Its mobile part allows boats to pass which once used 9 locks from Niort to Marans in order to export salt, wine, eels and pottery. In 1800, prefect Dupin wrote: “Merchants from Limoges and Blanc came to buy the eels which they took in 10 or 15 cartloads at a time. After having killed them in salt, they delivered them to dealers, who, at fairs and markets, roasted them in the open air...”. Magné pottery was an old local industry which manufactured utilitarian, decorative and devotional items sold to pilgrims to Ste-Macrine.
Step 5: House of the Marais Poitevin in Coulon
Unveil the mysteries of the Marais Poitevin and its Green Venice. How was he born? By whom and why were the canals dug? You will have the answer during the Maraiscope, a projection on a large screen and its model retracing the history of the Marais Poitevin. At each session, a facilitator presents the territory, then returns at the end of the film for a time of discussion. Thanks to the permanent exhibitions, discover the life of market gardeners: building a boat, fishing for eels, a 2020th century interior. The kingfisher will be the king of the XNUMX temporary exhibition with exceptional photos by Erwan Balança. The shop offers books, artisanal and regional products, souvenirs…
Step 6: The Lodge of Pierre Levée
Private domain. The dwelling of Pierre Levée, from the Latin name “Petra longa” raised stone, designated a place close to a dolmen, possibly a menhir. Since the 1921th century, several noble families have lived in this house. Then in 92 it was the birthplace of Jean Richard, he was the actor who notably played Commissioner Maigret in 1980 episodes, he was passionate about the circus, he bought PINDER and received the national circus grand prize in XNUMX.
Step 7: The Man of Bessines
Fabrice Hyber(t) is the author in 1989 of L'Homme de Bessines. These little green men, 86 cm high, installed on the town's water network, fountains spewing water through all bodily orifices, respond to a public order for street furniture and reflect the close link existing between the market gardener and the Marais Poitevin.
This internationally renowned artist living in Paris also created in 1991 the largest soap in the world entered in the Guinness World Records (22 tonnes molded in a truck bed). In 1995, he transformed the Museum of Modern Art in Paris into a Hybermarché and installed a professional hairdressing salon at the Center Georges Pompidou on the occasion of the Feminin/Masculin exhibition of 1996.
Step 8: Bessines municipal port
The municipal port of Bessines, once the heart of village life, stretches at the foot of a hillside
limestone. You can notice this characteristic alignment of pollarded ash trees and poplars which are the emblematic trees of the Marais Poitevin.