Briare and Gien: The Canal Bridge over the Loire, the Hunting Château and the Faïence

Required Activities

• Walk the full 662m of the canal bridge and count as you go: fifteen spans of 37m on fourteen stone piers, the eight cast-iron rostra two to a column, the chimeras and the lamp standards that make it look like the Pont Alexandre-III dropped over the Loire

• In the château Anne de Beaujeu had rebuilt between 1494 and 1500, work through the three halves of the hunting museum - falconry, chasse à courre, chasse à tir - and find Napoleon III's shotgun and the sculpture of his dogs among the fifteen thousand works

• From the bank, work out where Eiffel's work stops and someone else's starts: his company built the stone piers and abutments between 1890 and 1896, while the steel trough carrying the water came from Daydé and Pillé of Creil, and the whole thing opened quietly on 16 September 1896 because the town blamed it for flooding their cellars

• In the faïencerie's own museum, in the buildings where it has worked since 1821, pick out the Gien blue and the crackle-glaze pieces that made its name, then look across at the kilns that still turn out around 800,000 pieces a year

• In the hunting-horn room, play the fanfares and work out which call means what, then find the collection of over 800 vénerie buttons and the two German crossbows of the 16th century