Heritage Loop No. 19 - the two cantons

This easy route, taking slightly hilly low-traffic roads, will lead you to the heart of the peaceful Vosgian countryside. Small villages, isolated farms, and underbrush, you will enjoy the lush and refreshing setting offered by this walk.

1) Arches was once the seat of an important provostship. The town was surrounded by an urban enclosure and a large fortress, destroyed during the Thirty Years' War. From Saint Maurice Church, join the Route d'Epinal and turn right. Just after, at the foot of the church mound, you can distinguish a gravel area that was an old weigh station, which allowed for weighing cargo shipments. Next to it is a plaque commemorating the resistance fighters killed during World War II. Follow the signs and turn immediately left. At the intersection, you can see on your left the master’s house of the owner of the Kullmann weaving factory built in 1897. After the railway, you will pass alongside this factory, which employed 253 people in 1900.
2) On the other side of the Moselle, in Archettes, the route passes along a set of worker housing built at the end of the 19th century to accommodate weaving workers.
3) On the way to Jarménil, you will pass the old Febvrel textile factory. Founded in 1852 at Saut du Broc, this company combined a spinning mill and a weaving facility, using the water power from the Moselle.
4) In Jarménil, cross the Vologne before it joins the Moselle, 5) then cross the Moselle to reach Pouxeux and go back to Arches.
6) You will pass by the Arches paper mill, heir to the old paper mills that have been in the area since the 15th century, the oldest of which in Arches dates back to 1492. Just after, you will cross the Bouzey Reservoir Feeding Canal (CARB), completed in 1883. It allowed water from the Moselle, taken from Saint-Etienne-Lès-Remiremont, to flow to Bouzey, which serves as a reservoir for the summit of the Vosges canal. 7) Continue to Raon-aux-Bois, where the church houses an altarpiece from 1731. This road will lead you to the heart of the countryside, between pastures and small forests.
8) You will pass, in particular, through several hamlets of Raon-aux-Bois and Hadol, rich in small heritage.