Saint-Eloy-Les-Mines combines its mining heritage with leisure activities at the Plan d’eau. Visitors who want to explore the town’s history can find different points of interest at the Maison de la Mine and the Chevalement du Puits Saint-Joseph. At the water, swimming and pedal boating are available; three walks also start there. For planning, it is worth considering the activities separately: the bathing area, seasonal boat hire and walking route each have their own conditions.

Mining history at the Maison de la Mine

The Maison de la Mine presents the mining history of Saint-Éloy-les-Mines, which began in 1741, and the town’s origins. The museum includes reconstructions of a chambre chaude and a lampisterie. They add two specific areas of the exhibition to the historical overview. This places the town’s development alongside the presentation of its mining history.

An immersive room was added in 2024. It uses virtual and augmented reality, panoramic screens and three-dimensional machinery to immerse visitors in the coal mines. Check before your trip whether the room is open. This lets you plan your museum visit around two different types of exhibits: the reconstructions and the multimedia room.

Another symbol of the mining history is the Chevalement du Puits Saint-Joseph. The structure was built in 1926, is 40 metres high and weighs 160 tonnes. As a cultural and historical landmark, it represents the two centuries of coal mining that have significantly shaped the history of Saint-Éloy-les-Mines. These figures give the historic structure a tangible scale; the importance of mining to the town can also be explored at the Maison de la Mine.

Plan d’eau: swimming and pedal boats

The story of the Plan d’eau begins with a change to the landscape: the collapse of mine galleries left two large depressions at the southern entrance to the town between the 1950s and 1960s. A leisure destination developed there. Today, the focus is therefore not only on mining history, but also on activities on the water.

The Plan d’eau has a bathing area beside a fine-sand beach. Swimming there is unsupervised; check the conditions before swimming. Pedal boats are available for hire, but availability is seasonal and should be checked before your trip. The two water activities therefore differ in practical terms: for swimming, the lack of supervision is important; for pedal boats, it is the seasonal hire.

Walks starting at the Plan d’eau

Three walks start at the Plan d’eau, offering a way to discover Saint-Éloy-les-Mines and the surrounding area. One of them is La forêt du Quartier: this circular walk is 16 kilometres long, rated difficult and listed as taking 4 hours and 45 minutes. These details help you assess the walk’s time and physical demands. Check the route conditions locally before setting off.

La forêt du Quartier follows a body of water to Youx, offers views of the Bouble Valley and Saint-Éloy-les-Mines, and then passes near former mining settlements. The route combines landscape views with traces of mining history, without requiring the former settlements themselves to be destinations on the walk. So the walk offers more than a single viewpoint, while its stated difficulty and duration remain key for planning.

The starting point is Place Saint-Ménilie, by an 11th-century church. There is a car park near the church in the old town centre. Together with the stated duration and distance, this provides a clear starting point for planning the walk. Although all three walks start at the Plan d’eau, the details on distance, difficulty and duration given here apply to La forêt du Quartier.

Discover nature with children

The Expert Nature des Combrailles discovery kit – Les plans d’eau de Saint-Éloy is for children aged six and over who want to learn about the natural heritage of the Combrailles. It complements the themes of mining history and walking with a distinct way to discover nature. When choosing what to do, you can decide whether your stay will focus mainly on historic sites, activities on the water, a longer walk or discovering nature with the kit.

Discover more destinations: Pionsat, Ardes, Vollore-Montagne, Saint-Beauzire, Villeneuve, Olby, Saint-Gervais-Dʼauvergne, Saint-Flour

View the main travel overview: Puy-De-Dôme.