Route details
Description
Your itinerary
Step 1: Vivier road
Causeways are embankments made in the bed of a watercourse which allow its flow to be regulated by forming a barrier. They also make it possible to divert water towards the mills and maintain a minimum level during the summer.
Step 2: Go to Canoe
A canoe pass allows you to cross dams or locks by leisure boats such as canoes and kayaks, in complete safety.
Step 3: The Dungeon
The keep: 1st building in Niort classified as a historic monument. On the banks of the Sèvre Niortaise, stands one of the most beautiful sets of twin Romanesque dungeons in France. They formed the central recess of a vast castle in the shape of a quadrilateral, some 700 meters long and armed with around ten towers. It was the King of England, Henry II Plantagenet, who, wanting to develop and defend the domains that his wife, Eleanor of Aquitaine brought him through her marriage, decided to have it rebuilt at the end of the XNUMXth century. century, the castle of Niort and to make it an impregnable fortress.
Step 4: The Port Boinot slipway
Merchant activity on the Sèvre was important between Niort and
Marans in Charente-Maritime (exchanges of wood, wine, salt, sheets, leather, etc.)
Port Boinot, an industrial wasteland of 25 m², emblematic of the working history of Niort, will be reborn and offer a new meeting and leisure space and will offer new green spaces in the heart of the city. It will considerably strengthen the presence of nature in the city.
This environment will be an ideal starting point for canoe itineraries, river walks or even hiking or cycling trips.
Step 5: Comporté road
The Comporté lock, built in 1862, is close to the old mill of the same name. Its construction was necessary to maintain water upstream of the Sèvre. The lock house housed the agent who was responsible for operating the lock manually.
Today, the lock is remotely managed and boxes are given to sailors to pass through the locks.
A lock is made up of an airlock between two hermetic doors, between the upstream reach and the downstream reach. The boat is placed in the airlock while waiting for the slats at the bottom of the doors to slide in order to flow upstream or downstream, depending on the direction of navigation.
The Comporté lock is automated (remote control required), or portage.
Step 6: Saint-Liguaire Chain Boat
The chain boat was once widely used on the Marais Poitevin to cross the multitude of canals present in this area. With its two chains each connected to a bank, it can be used by everyone in complete autonomy, and allows you to easily cross the Sèvre or the conches of the Marais.
Step 7: Roussille 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.
Automated lock (remote control required), or portage.