May 30 – Marais Poitevin: Green Venice

We are off on another day trip today.  To the Marais Poitevin Regional Natural Park, designated a “Grand Site de France”.  The drive took us through a lot of farmland laced with drainage canals. 

We also drove through the small town of Damvix.  There were scarecrows/manikins dotting the way through town.  Sort of funny.

Our destination is the little town of Arcais in the middle of the Marais Poitevin.  The Marais Poitevin is vast area covering over 430 square miles of mostly marshland, or former marshland and is France’s second largest wetland area.  Thousands of years ago it was an ocean-water basin with a few islands.  Back in the Middle Ages man began digging ditches, canals and dykes to drain much of the area for use as farmland.  And our plan for the day was boat ride through some of the canals.

In Arcais, we found a place that rented boats and also gave boat tours.  We weren’t interested in rowing ourselves or getting lost in a maze of canals, so we hired Maximillian and headed out through the canals on a boat.  The area was lush and green with massive trees along the canal banks.  

Some of the trees were mostly just hallow trunks with a lush top.

We enjoyed the tranquil slow ride through the canals.

There were a few picturesque bridges.

We pulled into a very narrow side canal where Maximillian took picked up a pole and rammed it into the shallow bottom of the canal.  The water erupted with bubbles.  The entire bottom of the canals are filled with methane gas.  Then he pulled out a lighter, pounded some more and lit the gas on fire.  So it looked like the water was on fire. 

A few of the islands are now tree farms and when the trees are harvested, they are floated through the canals to the pick-up site.

The area used to have more farms and houses and the only way that people could get around was by boat.

This family was out enjoying the day on kayaks. 

As we got back into town we saw a lot of boats waiting for tourists...

and a couple of cranes that, in the past, were used to pull logs out of the canal.

After the hour and a half leisurely ride through the canals we headed over to the small snack bar they had and bought a couple of sandwiches for lunch. 

We decided to settle for just a half day of sightseeing and headed back to La Rochelle.