Les Marais de Jard

It's good to make mistakes sometimes. Aiming for la Plage du Veillon your faithful blogger took a wrong turn and suddenly saw a sign: Observatoire des Marais. Curious to the last, we stopped and investigated.

And this is the view we saw, the amazing man-made channels dug into the ancient marshes

Of course curiosity got the better of us and down we went...

...to explore a complex system of interlocking waterways...

...connected by gates to control the water level.

Some areas were covered with nets, probably to protect  fish or eels.

Some cattle were curious,

some were hungry.

We even saw a friendly donkey,

wild mushrooms

and lots of birds.

And here's how it looks on Google Earth