Randonnée Sansais-La Garette – Sur les pas d'Henri IV
Route details
Description
intense. This town is home to real historical, architectural and natural treasures where water and land intertwine. This route includes several tarmacked sections.
Happy hiking and remember that you are not alone on the trails you are about to travel. We therefore invite you to respect nature: avoid picking flowers and plants, do not leave any trash behind, respect inhabited places, stay on the trails, keep dogs on a leash.
Your itinerary
Step 1
This town is made up of 2 centers 4 km apart, the town of Sansais, perched on its hillside, and La Garette, a picturesque and touristy street village, clinging to the side of a mound and built as close as possible to the Sèvre marshes. .
Step 2
In the past, La Garette had 2 ports used to transport goods and animals to the plots of the Marais. The traffic was heavy. With that of Coulon, these ports served as a link between Gâtine and Saintonge.
Step 3
In the 19th century, a stud farm sheltered Poitevin draft horses, Poitou donkeys and Poitevin mules.
Step 4
You leave the communal marsh to enter the bocage. Under the Restoration the commune of Sansais-La Garette was allocated “communal” areas over which the inhabitants had acquired rights, recognized by law and the civil code. The commune still has a few hectares, called the “Grands Marais”, still rented today for pastoral uses.
Step 5
Henri IV seized it in 1587. During the revolution it was sold to Louis François CHABOT. Born in Niort in 1757, this gendarme of the king's guard was at that time promoted to general. He died at the Château de Sansais in 1837.
Step 6
Built in the middle of the 1880th century, it replaced a Merovingian building built on the site of a Gallo-Roman sanctuary. Burnt down during the Hundred Years' Wars, it was rebuilt according to plans by Bergeron from Niort. The current church was delivered in XNUMX.
Step 7
Built at the end of the 19th century, this imposing building bears witness to the solid roots of the republican tradition in the heart of the marsh.
Step 8
La Garette between its old fishermen's houses between street and canal. In this typical street there are piers, traders, craftsmen, restaurants... The Garette marshes are only accessible by boat.