Marais Poitevin by Bike: Green Venice

Three days cycling in the Marais Poitevin, across a network of eight hundred kilometres of signed routes among the canals. The route starts in Niort and its Plantagenet keep, reaches Coulon, capital of the Venise Verte and the main punt landing, then Arcais and its market gardeners' houses, La Garette and its paths lined with pollarded ash, trees cut into balls whose roots hold the banks together, and finally Marans in Charente-Maritime, at the junction of the wet and drained marshes. The terrain is perfectly flat, but the towpaths are narrow and sometimes grassy, so a hybrid bike is preferable. Combine half a day of cycling with an hour in a punt to understand the marsh from both viewpoints.