| La Creusille Harbor | |
|---|---|
 Traditional boat of Blois | |
 Click on the map for a fullscreen view | |
| Location | |
| Country | France |
| Location | Centre-Val de Loire, Loir-et-Cher, Blois |
| Coordinates | 47°35′13″N1°20′42″E / 47.58689°N 1.34495°E |
| Details | |
| Opened | 17st century |
La Creusille is a harbor on the left bank of the Loire river, located in the southern part of Blois , France.
The word Creusille (French pronunciation: [kʁøzij] ) is an old local dialect term to designate the “hollow pilgrim's scallop” (« creuse coquille du pèlerin » in French [1] ). This refers to the shell of Saint James Christian pilgrims used to wear when going to Santiago de Compostela, Spain. [2]
Since the Ancient times, the Loire river is the major axis in the region for transportation, and its stream bed made the Val de Loire agricultural. Due to its strategical situation, Blois is an obligatory passage for all pilgrims who follow the Way of St James through the Tours Route (on the Via Turonensis starting in Paris and passing through Tours). [3] The flows of people and goods are thus constant, and justify the development of rudimentary strikes at several points of the banks of the river.
During the Middle Ages, the river is rather different than today. Indeed, the medieval bridge was covered with houses, towers, and even a chapel. To feed 5 water mills, a 650m-long submersible dike was built in the middle of the river around the 9th century (at the latest). [4]
Until 1606, both banks of the river were not parts of the same city, Blois. Indeed, the city was originally set up on the right bank. On the other side, this was actually a river island with a different manor that was under the Catholic Church's administration through St Saturnin parish. The island was named Insula Evenna, and the village standing there Vienne. As such, La Creusille has always been part of Vienne. Until this moment, Blois had its own harbor but it was abandoned after the addition of Vienne. [5]
From the 17th century on, market gardening, river transportation, fishing, tanning, and the hotel business flourished, and their growth exceeded the capacity of the shoreline. Thus, a lean port with two access ramps to the shore was developed.
After the fall of the medieval bridge in 1716, the port was reinforced as part of the reconstructions of the Loire levees and the construction of the new Jacques-Gabriel Bridge. All the remaining water mills were destroyed, but the submersible dike was readjusted in order to divert the river's flow to the right bank and thus away from La Creusille, making it easier to moor boats. In 1717, a dike was built in the extension of the harbor and towards the East: the operation dried up the La Bouillie river channel and thus linked the former Evenna island to the left bank. [6]
The arrival of the railroad in Blois in 1846 led the port to reinvent itself. Now that goods and people could reach Paris in a few hours (as opposed to several days by boat, the duration of which could vary according to direction, season, weather...), La Creusille gradually became a shipyard. [7]
At the same time, a new activity appeared in the 19th century: sand mining. Miners extracted sand and gravel directly from the steam bed of the Loire river, but the practice was sufficiently important to lower the water line, lower the alluvial water table, dry out wetlands and cause pike spawning grounds to disappear. Mining in Blois was therefore naturally abolished in 1995. [8]
Since the year 2000, La Creusille is part of the UNESCO's World Heritage sites in France. [9]
Today, the port has given way to an urban park on the left bank of the Loire river, complete with a leisure area. Accessible by car, the park has a parking area, a playground, picnic areas, a ping-pong table, a self-service library and a boulodrome, and provides free access to drinking water and electricity. [10]
The park is located on the route of La Loire à vélo and the European Rivers Route (EV6). [11]
Since 2010, a guinguette animates the park in summer. [12]
La Creusille also hosts the Loire Observatory, which offers traditional boat trips on the river. [13]
Orléans is a city in north-central France, about 120 kilometres southwest of Paris. It is the prefecture of the department of Loiret and of the region of Centre-Val de Loire.
Loir-et-Cher is a department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France. Its name is originated from two rivers which cross it, the Loir in its northern part and the Cher in its southern part. Its prefecture is Blois. The INSEE and La Poste gave it the number 41. It had a population of 329,470 in 2019.
Blois is a commune and the capital city of Loir-et-Cher department, in Centre-Val de Loire, France, on the banks of the lower Loire river between Orléans and Tours.
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Vienne is a landlocked department in the French region of Nouvelle-Aquitaine. It takes its name from the river Vienne. It had a population of 438,435 in 2019.
Tours station is a railway station serving the city of Tours, Indre-et-Loire department, western France. It is situated on the Paris–Bordeaux railway, the Tours–Saint-Nazaire railway, and the non-electrified Tours–Le Mans railway. The Gare de Tours is a terminus; most TGV trains only serve the nearby Gare de Saint-Pierre-des-Corps.
The railway from Paris to Bordeaux is an important French 584-kilometre long railway line, that connects Paris to the southwestern port city Bordeaux via Orléans and Tours. The railway was opened in several stages between 1840 and 1853, when the section from Poitiers to Angoulême was finished. The opening of the LGV Atlantique high speed line from Paris to Tours in 1989 has decreased the importance of this section of the line for passenger traffic; the opening of the LGV Sud Europe Atlantique in 2017 has seen all long distance passenger trains migrating to that line and leaving space for more regional and local trains, as well as freight trains.
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Nouvelle-Aquitaine is the largest administrative region in France by area, spanning the west and southwest of Metropolitan France. The region was created in 2014 by the merging of Aquitaine, Limousin, and Poitou-Charentes in a territorial reform. Nouvelle-Aquitaine has an area of 84,035.7 km2 (32,446.4 sq mi) – more than 1⁄7 of Metropolitan France – and has a population of 6,033,952 as of 2020. The new region was established on 1 January 2016, following the regional elections in December 2015.
The canton of Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine is an administrative division of the Indre-et-Loire department, central France. Its borders were modified at the French canton reorganisation which came into effect in March 2015. Its seat is in Sainte-Maure-de-Touraine.
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Blois-Vienne, or merely Vienne for locals, is the common name given to the southern part of Blois, central France, separated from the rest of the city by the natural border of the Loire river. It corresponds to the subdistricts of St Saturnin, La Creusille, Les Métairies and La Vaquerie, but also include the hamlets of Bas-Rivière and Béjun, although these ones are now administratively attached to the neighboring commune of Chailles. In other words, it is now the left bank of the Loire in Blois.
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