Green Venice is a very special part of the Marais Poitevin ... It covers 15,000 hectares on either side of the Sèvre Niortaise ... We walk there, on foot, by bike, and of course by boat ... Prefer the walk guided by a boatman because there are only the natives for whom the canals are not alike! Slowness required and silence just disturbed by the sounds of nature, the beauty of the landscapes and the harmony of colors, nothing is more exotic than letting yourself slide on this tranquil water, covered with its green carpet of duckweed, shadow of the trees, far from everything ... take advantage of a stop in one of the villages to take this walk from the small piers. From Coulon to Maillé, passing through the villages of Arçais, Damvix, Garette or Vanneau, it is a succession of paintings that many painters wanted to transcribe on their canvas: willows whose branches come to touch the water, the "huts of the marsh", these white houses with blue shutters, posed there at the edge of the canal, their boats ready to go, as before when the boat was the most used means of transport ... Exceptional but fragile heritage, the Green Venice is the subject of much attention: consolidation of the banks by replanting trees after the storm of 1999, protective measures in particular for flora and fauna.