Niort, Vouillé, Aiffres – Entre Lambon et Guirande
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
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Niort, Vouillé, Aiffres – Between Lambon and Guirande
Distance:40,5 km
Your itinerary
Step 1: The Gardens of the Breach
The second heart of Niort and a major trading center in the 2th century, La Brèche hosted the region's major agricultural and industrial fairs until the XNUMXth century. Today she finds a new lease of life. A vast green space in the heart of the city, it has become the favorite walking and meeting place for families and young people. Take advantage of its immense esplanade for a taste and pleasure break. The terraces of the bars and restaurants, sheltered from the century-old plane trees, will allow you to enjoy the musical strolls and other cultural shows which enliven the historic center and strengthen the link between the Place de la Brèche and the banks of the Sèvre Niortaise . Experience this new space in the heart of the city!
Step 2: Old cemetery
You can access the old cemetery of Niort. Guided tours are made in this cemetery in order to understand the different funerary modes and styles through different eras. Various graves of men of arts and culture are found there, architects, musicians, painters...
Step 3: Stump district
Ancient rural village established on the slopes of Lambon, today a district of Niort, whose wine was prized by Kings François 1st and Henry IV.
Step 4: Saint-Maixent Church in Souché
The Romanesque building was ravaged by Protestants, partially restored in the 17th century and enlarged in the 18th century. The statue in the bell tower represents Saint Maixent housed in a neo-Gothic canopy niche and treading the serpentine fairy Mélusine.
Step 5: The Lambon
The Lambon, a tributary of the Sèvre Niortaise, has its source at La Couarde. Its intermittent course is crossed by fords lined with stone bridges. 40,8 km long, its watershed is 108 km.
Step 6: Vouillé
To the east of Niort, the town with five villages (Vouillé Bourg, Gascougnolles, Arthenay, La Rivière and Vaumoreau) unfolds around the green Lambon valley. Moreover, its surname comes from the Latin vallis clara meaning clear valley. Although mentioned for the first time in 1271, it has been occupied since prehistoric times. At the beginning of the 2009th century, hemp, grown in the Sieur Moreau valley (Vaumoreau), was used to make thread used to weave linen. The retting of the stems took place in the river. The mansions, farmhouses, dovecotes and dry stone walls rub shoulders with the new town center and the Place des Cinq Villages inaugurated in XNUMX. The rural architecture of Vouillé can be discovered by taking its alleys and numerous hiking trails.
Step 7: The Notre-Dame de Vouillé church
Dating from the 1964th, XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, the building was renovated by Sébastien d'Assailly, founder with the Duke of Béthune Charost of the Little Sisters of Providence in the second half of the XNUMXth century. In XNUMX, it was included in the additional list of Historic Monuments.
Step 8: The Ernest Pérochon popular library
The smallest library in France is located at a place called La Rivière, next to the children's book area and at the top of a triangle whose base is the former Protestant temple and the former school. Its construction, encouraged by Paul Bert, Minister of Public Education, is possible thanks to the mayor of Assailly authorizing its installation on part of his property. The size of a bus shelter, it contains 2000 volumes including the works of Ernest Pérochon, Prix Goncourt 1920 and former teacher of Vouillé who frequented the humble establishment.
Step 9: Vouillé Town Hall Park
An ideal place to take a little break mid-course.
Step 10: Aiffres
Its geographical location at the gateway to the Atlantic or the Marais Poitevin, its infrastructure and its shops give an urban and rural vitality to this small town of 5.600 inhabitants. With its strong residential appeal, Aiffres gives an important place to culture and community life. The unmissable Aiffricades and its Spring carnival highlight the town with its St-Pierre church and its 6.000th century hosanna cross, listed as a Historic Monument. By bike or on foot, on the hiking trails, discover the paths of the Mairé circuit. Located near the Silver Mines of Pays Mellois, organize your stay through XNUMX years of history.
Step 11: The hosanna cross of Aiffres
The cemetery's hosannière cross dates from the 1889th century. It was classified as a Historic Monument in 2000 and restored in 99 following the storm of 12. Its square base supports four columns welded in a cross like church pillars. It measures XNUMX m. high and a cross the crown. Its oriented stone tablet allowed on Palm Day, the Sunday before Easter, the reading of the Gospel celebrating the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem, then the placing on the pulpit of palm branches blessed with the song of Hosanna (Hebrew word meaning Save- us, please).
Step 12: Saint-Maurice Church
The church, land and vineyards were given in the 1798th century to the monks of Saint-Cyprien de Poitiers by Guillaume and his wife Arsendis to deserve a more secure place in paradise. Remodeled, then sold in XNUMX to the Niort merchant Pierre Dubois, it is today a barn.
Step 13: Saint-Pierre church
Founded by the Count of Poitou William VII (1088-1126) or his successor, on a hill overlooking the Guirande, a little away from the village, the church is attached to the archdeaconry of Brioux-sur-Boutonne and to the archpriest of Melle. But its origin is perhaps before the 1816th century given its name which is that of the cathedral of Poitiers. Its oldest parts also seem to date from this period. At the start of the Revolution, it served as a wood depot. Under the Directory, although returned to worship thanks to the priest Jean Belin, the cross, the statues, the furniture and the priestly ornaments were burned in the meadow of the rectory. Threatening ruin in 1837, work was then undertaken (reconstruction of the choir in 1865, repair in 1831 of the altar of the Virgin judged to be in a disastrous state in XNUMX, etc.).
Step 14: Niort Hospital
Foundation of the hospital in 1665. The hospital built between 1930 and 1940 by André Laborie is considered the ideal prototype of the provincial hospital center: scientific concentration, transformation of the hospital into a health home; opening of the establishment to all. The building integrates the hygienic concepts promoted by Renon: maximum air and light; avoid excess heat and cold; remove noise. The architect adapts the existing buildings to the type of pavilion hospital, distinguishing the pavilions according to illnesses and patients. The construction of new buildings is accompanied by the modernization of old ones with hot water production and sewers.
Step 15: Niort station
Niort station was put into service in 1856 by the Paris to Orléans Railway Company (PO), when it opened the section from Saint-Benoît to Niort for operation. The next section from Niort to La Rochelle was opened in 1857, which was what the company was waiting for to inaugurate its entire Poitiers – La Rochelle – Rochefort line. In the 1880s, the State Railroad Administration carried out several openings of several single-track lines. These openings of lines directly serving the station are supplemented by other openings further away but allowing connections with important cities such as Poitiers, La Rochelle, Bordeaux, Nantes. This made Niort an important station in the state network with an average of seventy train departures (passenger or freight) daily in the early 1890s.
Step 16: Saint-Hilaire church in Niort
This 85th century church in the Byzantine neo-Romanesque style, financed in part by Emperor Napoleon III and signed Pierre-Théophile Segrétain, first departmental architect of Deux-Sèvres, bears the surname of the evangelist of Poitou, first bishop of Poitiers in the XNUMXth century century, Doctor of the Church who gave his name to XNUMX French communes including Saint-Hilaire-la-Palud (Marais Poitevin).
A large statue of the saint is depicted on the facade, the general shape of which resembles that of Notre-Dame la Grande in Poitiers. He is framed by Saint Ambrose, Doctor of the Latin Church, and Saint Athanasius, Doctor of the Greek Church, both contemporaries of the bishop. Saint Hilary makes the sign of blessing with his right hand, holds the book of the Trinity in his left and treads a monster.
It was included in 2015 on the additional list of Historic Monuments.
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