Voie Sacrée & Lac de Madine Day Loop
Bar-le-Duc was the nerve centre of the Voie Sacrée — the 'Sacred Way' along which 6,000 trucks a week supplied Verdun during the First World War — and the road north through the Meuse countryside leads naturally to Lac de Madine, a 1,100-hectare reservoir that is one of the largest lakes in eastern France, ringed by oak forest and bird-rich wetlands.
Driving the Voie Sacrée (D1916)
The D1916 road from Bar-le-Duc to Verdun (about 60 km) follows the original Voie Sacrée, marked every kilometre by a small stone marker topped with a soldier's helmet. The drive through rolling Meuse farmland and beech forests is quietly moving, with memorials, cemeteries and ossuary signs appearing regularly along the verges.
Stop at the village of Souilly, where General Pétain established his headquarters in the mairie in 1916 — the building still stands and carries a commemorative plaque. The village gives a human scale to the enormous logistical operation the road represented.
Lac de Madine: nature, cycling and birdwatching
Turn west off the D1916 near Hattonchâtel to reach Lac de Madine, a man-made reservoir completed in 1973 that has matured into a superb wildlife habitat. The lake's eastern shore holds a nature reserve where great crested grebes, grey herons and — in migration season — ospreys can be spotted from free public hides.
A flat 26 km cycling circuit rings the entire lake on dedicated paths; bike hire is available at the Base de Loisirs de Madine near Nonsard-Lamarche. The western shore has sandy swimming beaches open in summer, and the sunsets over the water, with the ridge of the Côtes de Meuse vineyards behind, are genuinely spectacular.
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