Poses, city of boats

Moored in Poses, a former toll, towage and boat maintenance site, the Midway, a motorless barge that used to be towed, is now home to the Musée de la Batellerie. Come aboard and let yourself be carried away by the history of the river. Did you know that 90% of the men in Poses used to work on the Seine? Here, the memory of the river lives on in the stories told by the bargemen, the unusual objects and the timeless photographs that reveal the secret life of the “people on board”. With your ticket, continue the adventure on the Fauvette, another boat, a little younger, but still dashing! An experience not to be missed!

Before 1850, navigation on the Seine was based on towage, initially provided by villagers, then by horses. Stables, taverns and essential trades such as blacksmiths, saddlers, tailors and shipwrights kept the banks alive. Without a dam, the water level was 4 to 5 m lower than it is today, with a powerful current that made navigation perilous. No fewer than 450 men were needed to cross the dangerous channel, now dominated by the dam. Under Louis XV, the “river horses” took over. Depending on the size of the boat, 12 to 56 horses pulled the boats from the banks and islands, often under difficult, complex and costly conditions.

Before bridges were built, the ferry linked Poses to Amfreville-sous-les-Monts, carrying people, animals and cars until 1950. Waiting passengers benefited local businesses, which kept the riverbanks busy. In August 1944, as they retreated northwards, the Germans built boat bridges across the Seine. In just 5 or 6 days, no fewer than 16,000 vehicles used these ephemeral crossings.

“La Rousserole” is the name of the house where Marcel Niquet, a painter who loved the banks of the Seine, lived. A small rufous sparrow, nestling on its façade, invites you to look up in his honour. A member of the Société des artistes rouennais until 1931, he left a legacy of more than 2,200 works: portraits of sailors, scenes of life and landscapes of the Seine. Born in 1889 and died in 1968, he also loved his village, where he was a town councillor for 30 years. Encouraged as a child by Jean-Paul Sinibaldi, a painter who spent his holidays in Poses, he became a pupil and friend of Léon Suzanne, a leading figure in the Rouen school.

Built in 1885, the 235-metre-long Poses dam is the last obstacle before the sea, erecting its imposing silhouette as a veritable guardian of the town. It has definitively put an end to the difficulties of the channel. In the past, 80% of transport between Rouen and Paris took place on the river. Today, almost 15,000 boats cross this waterway every year, passing through the locks at Amfreville-sous-les-Monts every day. Cross the Seine with peace of mind: on one side, the water is calm and sparkling… On the other, it roars, pouring out cubic metres of water with impressive power, a constant reminder of the courage of the thousands of boatmen who have crossed it.