Lac d'Allier and the River Parks

The Lac d'Allier, formed where the river widens and slows south of the city centre, provides a substantial green corridor that most visitors to Vichy's thermal district entirely miss. The lakeside parks are large, well-maintained, and genuinely pleasant: miles of flat paths along the water, shaded by mature trees, with views across to the wooded hills on the opposite bank. Rowing boats and pedalos are available for hire in season. The parks also contain a number of sports facilities, including tennis courts and a swimming pool.

For cyclists, the Allier valley offers an excellent flat route north and south from the city. The Via Allier cycling trail runs along the river for considerable distances in both directions, and Vichy makes a good base for day rides along the valley. Bike hire is available in the city centre. On hot summer days the lakeside parks fill with locals, and the atmosphere is nothing like the stiff Belle Époque formality of the thermal district — it is much more relaxed, and all the better for it.

things to do sight park cycling
A story
The Allier river at Vichy was tamed in the nineteenth century to create the calm lakeside setting that now forms the city's southern edge. The project was part of the same imperial-era investment that built the thermal infrastructure: Napoleon III wanted a resort that could offer both the cure and the stroll, and the engineered lake made the latter much more pleasant. The result is one of the more elegant examples of nineteenth-century urban landscape design in France.