Fort Boyard

The idea that a fort should be built at that place in order to protect the naval shipyard of Rochefort dated from the 17th century, but the studies carried out at that time did not encourage the government to do so. The idea came back in the early 19th century, with Napoleon Bonaparte who decided to launch the construction of a fort on this sandbank, between the Oleron Isle and the Aix Isle. A huge amount of rocks was brought there to make a solid ground for the building. It turned out that the project was not that simple because of the tide and the storms. The coming of a non-friendly English frigate which fired at the workers and the disastrous battle of brulots led to the abandon of the construction for thirty years. After many problems still linked to the ocean and its vagaries, 1866 marked the completion of the project. The fort was used as a prison for a few years then fell into disuse. In the late 1980‘s, the fort was bought by a production company and was restored by the department of Charente-Maritime. In the early 1990‘s, the fort Boyard became the scene of a game show named after the fort, in which one team must complete challenges in order to get the treasure of the fort. The game has been exported to many countries and made the fort Boyard famous in France and abroad. It was a fresh start for the fort which did not have a great usefulness in the past. Photo credit: Mpkossen, licence CC-BY-SA 3.0