The Aqueduc at Maintenon

An amazing feat of engineering is today a romantic ruin.

The Maréchal de Vauban, the official engineer of Louis XIV, was famous for the many forts he built along the French coast. At Maintenon he would construct his first “domestic” project, an ambitious aqueduct to feed water from the Eure River to the fountains of Versailles. The project began with 30,000 workers, only to be interrupted by war in 1688. Money was short and the project was abandoned. Originally meant to have three tiers of progressively smaller arches, when construction stopped, only a first tier of 47 arches, standing 30 meters high, had been built, although many of these have since been destroyed. You can see drawings of the original design inside the Château de Maintenon.

Don’t miss: Not far from Maintenon, in Courville-sur-Eure, you can still see the eight-meter-high canal locks at Boizard, built to help retain water from the aqueduct.

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