The Green Corridor to the Sea

Parc Charruyer

The north end of a park built over old ramparts.

You're standing at the north end of a park that did not exist until 1890. Before that, this ground was wet, marshy military land at the foot of the western fortifications. The city bought it and turned the ditches and defenses into a pleasure garden, and the money came from a woman named Adèle Charruyer, daughter of the shipowner Étienne Charruyer, who left the town one hundred thousand francs in her will. Workers began in May 1887 and finished in December 1890.

What they made was an English-style park, with winding paths and big trees, two kilometers long and two hundred meters wide. A granite plaque near the corner of Avenue du Maréchal Leclerc and Avenue du Parc still remembers her. Since 1931 the park and the Mail have been a protected site. Today this is the walk La Rochelle keeps for itself, the shaded route people take every day between the city and the sea.

The streams that once filled the old moat ditches still run just ahead of you.

Old Moat Streams

Two old moat streams still run through the park.

Stop on the bridge and look down into the water. These channels are not new. When the ramparts stood here, a moat ran along their foot, fed by two small streams, the Lafond and the Fétilly, that come down from the high ground to the north. When the walls were demolished and the park was laid out, the engineers kept the water.

The old ditches became drainage canals, and the streams still feed them, moving slowly south through the grass toward the sea. That is why the park is so green in summer, and why the air here feels a few degrees cooler than the streets on the other side of the wall path. Small stone and wooden bridges cross the water every few hundred meters, so the paths switch from bank to bank. Follow the current and you will pass under plane trees and around little lawns.

Listen as you walk. The sound of running water is the oldest thing in this park, older than the flower beds, older than the benches, older than the name Charruyer.

Parc animalier Charles-Édouard Beltremieux

Free animals, from Poitou donkeys to peacocks.

The animal park is free and open every day, from ten minutes to eight in the morning until a quarter to nine in the evening between April and September, and until half past seven the rest of the year. Four hectares of it stretch along the water, and most of the animals here live semi-free, so a baudet du Poitou may be standing on the path when you arrive. These big shaggy donkeys share the ground with poitevine goats, fallow deer, peacocks, white Poitou geese, and Marans hens. The park is named for Charles-Édouard Beltremieux, a curator of the city museum who also served as mayor.

One rule matters more than any sign: do not feed the animals. A resident donkey named Cachou was once put on a diet because visitors kept handing him treats. The keepers know his name and his weight, and they will tell you about him if you ask. Keep your hands free and let the peacocks decide whether they want to follow you to the next gate.