Canal Bridge

On Saturday, we drove Dave's mother Louise (shown here next to the Loire) to Sancerre -- a really pretty town, by the way -- to begin her French course. We stopped along the way at something Molly and Betsy had been interested in seeing ever since we found it in our book of hikes in the Loire region: The longest bridge-canal in Europe, which connects two distant banks of the Loire river, 660 meters apart, by a canal over the river. The bridge is 11 meters above the surface of the Loire, which is pretty darned high.

When we climbed up to the bridge, we found that the big water-gates at either end were closed and the water (normally 2.2 meters deep) was drained out, creating a pretty dramatic dropoff between the towpaths on either side, as shown in this picture taken from one towpath (you have to imagine 600 meters of bridge stretching out behind the photographer). Molly's reaction, upon seeing this dropoff for the first time, was "I don't want to be up here". When Betsy heard this, she agreed with her big sister. Eventually we were able to persuade the children that walking across the bridge would be a lot less scary than hanging out in the cold by themselves while the three adults walked two-fifths of a mile across the river without them (they don't put THAT in the parenting manual). On the way back, they had even decided it was safe enough to use their scooters; see the photo below, which shows the Loire on the left and the canal on the right.

Obviously the canal bridge is an impressive feat of engineering. It was built in the 1890s, as part of a route that connects the Seine river with the Saone river. There is a little bit of helpful info and a map at this website; click on the "canal de Briare" flag. However, this website does not appear to be entirely accurate: Among other things, it claims that the bridge is part of the canal de Briare and that it was designed by Eiffel (yes, THAT Eiffel), neither of which appears to be quite correct; in fact, the bridge is part of the canal latéral à la Loire, and Eiffel only designed the masonry (the piers and abutments). See this translation of the French-language Wikipedia article about the bridge to (a) learn more, and (b) laugh at the sorts of things that automatic translators come up with.