Fort Louvois

The walkway appears at low tide, otherwise a free ferry goes to the fort. Fort entrance €7

Inaugurated in 1966, the Ile d'Oléron bridge connects the largest French island on the Atlantic coast to the mainland, the second island on the mainland coast after Corsica.
From the 1960s, with the boom in seaside vacations, ferries were no longer sufficient to transport vacationers' cars. The General Council of Charente-Maritime then decided to build a bridge.

The work was, at the time, a remarkable technical feat with its 3,027 meters in length, its 46 spans on the Coureau d'Oléron, a thin strait that separates the island from the Pointe du Chapus, from the mainland to the Isle.
It was completed on March 19, 1966, after ten months of work. Its design, a girder bridge, now widespread, was at the time of its revolutionary design.

Crossing the bridge offers beautiful views of the coasts, very different depending on the time of the tide, views of the open sea or of oyster beds.

Fort Louvois accessible by foot at low tide on a very slippery paved path