The best road cycling routes around Bouillé-Loretz

The contemporary art center of national interest, La Chapelle Jeanne d’Arc de Thouars, is today a leading venue for contemporary art in the western region. Along with the Château d’Oiron and the Syndicat Mixte de la Vallée du Thouet, which runs a program of public commissions for contemporary works, the art center's work is carried out in partnership across the entire territory of the Pays Thouarsais community of communes and, more broadly, in the northern part of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. Within the region, the art center is a recognized player in the Astre plastic and visual arts network. Developing an artistic project that takes into account its geographical location and its architectural envelope, a neo-Gothic chapel, the art center maintains a privileged relationship with the heritage of Thouars. Guest artists, hosted for residencies or exhibitions, appropriate the chapel space by creating an original work designed for the venue. They also bring their perspective to the city, urban planning, landscape, and rural areas of the Thouars region and the Thouet Valley. Since 1993, nearly a hundred artists have been invited for residencies or exhibition projects. In recent years, the art center has paid particular attention to emerging artists from art schools, particularly those from the regional Le Grand Huit network. In addition to its programming, the art center also engages in outreach activities in the form of off-site exhibitions, workshops, and events (meetings, lectures, and workshops). A mobile device, La Mar(g)elle, was created in 2015 by the artist Marie-Ange Guilleminot to offer interventions in partner locations, particularly within schools and structures in the social and medical sectors. For its educational action, the art center benefits from the action of the municipal art school of Thouars, to which it is connected within the visual arts department of the City of Thouars.

As you probably know, in the year 732, the armies of Charles Martel repelled the Arab advance around Poitiers. A troop of routed Saracens then barricaded themselves in the old parish church of St Sauveur and promised to surrender only in the event of divine intervention. However, in this month of May, after nights of prayers by the villagers, a cold snap hit the Poitiers countryside to the point of covering the grove with an astonishing layer of frost. The Saracens saw the sign of Allah in this unexpected event and decided to leave the village without giving battle. This legend gave its name to the village and the church of the Holy Trinity became a place consecrated by the religious authorities of the region. The oldest parts of the building that stands today on the small village square date back to the 11th century, but the church had to undergo several restoration campaigns during the 19th century. It now appears to us as a fine example of a Romanesque church, simple, rustic and austere. Note the modern stained glass windows made in the 1990s by Louis-René Petit, an artist who also worked in Sénanque and St Benoît sur Loire. His compositions inspired by frost give the church an atmosphere in harmony with its legend.

In 1147, Geoffrey Plantagenet, Count of Anjou, built a fortified castle on top of the hill and surrounded it with fortifications. Of the castle, only the chapel, which became a parish church in the 17th century, and of the ramparts, only the eastern part, remain. But this ancient fortified city perched on a limestone hill has retained its old-world charm and offers, along its narrow streets, behind high tuffeau walls, or in the embrasure of a vast portal, fleeting views of old aristocratic manors or rich residences in the colours of Anjou.

The Market Square is lined with houses whose construction dates from the 14th to the 19th century: the oldest house in the town (probably 1399) at no. 3, the old town house at no. 15 and the old Barony Registry (16th century) at no. 42.

Outside the town of Montreuil-Bellay, along a railway line, this site hosted, from 1941 to 1946, one of thirty French concentration camps for “homeless individuals, nomads and fairground people, of the Romani type”. In other words for Roma, Gypsies, Manouches or Gypsies. Of this camp, all that remains now are stone steps, foundations, a cellar which served as a prison and a commemorative stele. These Gypsies, in entire families, came from a multitude of small camps opened following the law of April 6, 1940 signed by Albert Lebrun, last president of the 3rd Republic, a law which stipulated that these nomads had to be gathered in communes designated under police surveillance and which was applied with zeal by Vichy. Also interned in Montreuil were tramps arrested in the streets of Nantes at the beginning of the summer of 1942, and almost all of whom disappeared before the end of the winter that followed. The camp was not an extermination camp. The thousands of Gypsies interned there, around 1,500 at the height of the occupation, were not subsequently deported to German death camps. But living conditions there were deplorable. Fallen into oblivion after the war, this site was only recently rediscovered. And it was only in 2010 that the ruins of this camp were listed as a historic monument in order to prevent their total disappearance and make them a place of memory. Some images on this site sadly steeped in history https://www.fondationshoah.org/memoire/montreuil-bellay-un-camp-tsigane-oubli-un-film-dalexandre-fronty

Montreuil, or small monastery, and Bellay, named after Lord Berlay installed in 1025 by Foulque de Nerra, founder of the rich province of Anjou, has been a walled town since the 13th century. Located at the crossroads of Anjou, Touraine and Poitou, the city became a strategic and commercial issue from the Middle Ages. This interest is reflected in the construction of fortified enclosures. A first belt (11th century), direct protection of the castle, is completed by an impressive rampart (13th century) encompassing the upper and lower towns, while a third enclosure ensures control of the ford. Six monumental gates, four of which still exist, were opened by the lords of Harcourt. These great builders endowed Montreuil-Bellay with exceptional architecture, which characterizes the appearance of the town even today: tuffeau lacework on the facades of the houses, the bossage of the towers of the Porte Saint-Jean, the tangle of the roofs of the house of the castle, turreted manors, castle chapel turned collegiate church, castles, Saint-Jean hospital... The 15th century is undoubtedly the golden century of Montreuil-Bellay, which can now be discovered in this preserved setting.

A must-see among the castles of the Loire, that of Montreuil-Bellay is very impressive, although less known, with its 15 defense towers and its 600 meters of ramparts. Fully furnished and inhabited by the same family since 1822, the castle located on a rocky promontory can be visited. Just like the gardens, suspended above the Thouet. From the ramparts, you will have a breathtaking view of the vineyards of the château's wine estate.

10-hectare body of water on the cycle route of the Thouet Valley. Swimming prohibited but you can cycle around it.