Читать книгу The River Rhone Cycle Route. From the Alps to the Mediterranean онлайн

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Cruise boats operate between Lyon (Stage 10) and Port-St-Louis-du-Rhône (Stage 20)

In 1933, the Compagnie Nationale du Rhône (CNR) was established to control the river. Work was halted by the Second World War but restarted in 1948. A series of 19 dams, 17 locks and a number of canal cuts have been constructed since then to improve navigation, generate electricity, control flooding and irrigate farmland. While the major works were completed in 1986, ongoing projects to open up the middle river above Lyon are continuing. The latest lock at Virignin (Stage 8) opened in 2012. Two dams have boat portage ramps (Brégnier–Cordon and Sault-Brénaz), although there are long-term plans to replace these with locks. When this infrastructure has been completed the river will be fully open to leisure craft as far as Seyssel, 461km from the Mediterranean.

Further upstream, the Seujet dam in Geneva (Stage 7) is the most important structure controlling both the level of Lake Geneva and the amount of water released into the Rhone. From 1894 the lake level was controlled by hand-operated sluices until being replaced by a hydro-electric dam in 1995.