The best road cycling routes around Colombiers

Courcoury is a natural island surrounded by the Charente and Seugne rivers, giving it a unique landscape setting between marshes and waterways, conducive to biodiversity and outdoor activities. It is also the only village in Charente-Maritime to have been awarded 4 stars by the "Villes et villages étoilés" label, recognizing its efforts to reduce light pollution through intelligent and environmentally friendly public lighting.

You can also spend a night at the Saint James House B&B, quality guest rooms, swimming pool and view of the Donjon 🙂

The Abbaye-aux-Dames is built around the church of Sainte-Marie, built in the twelfth century. Famous for its facade and its characteristic "pinecone" bell tower, it is one of the emblematic monuments of Saintonge's Romanesque art. After several wars and fires, the place was restored in the 1970s and 1980s and is now a hotel. When you walk through the long corridors you feel like you have been transported back to the time when the abbey was still alive.

The keep of Pons is located in the commune of Pons in the French department of Charente-Maritime in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. This tower is the old keep of the castle of Pons. 33 m high, it is visible from a long distance and is the symbol of the city. With the Saint-Gilles chapel, the remains of the ramparts and the main building, it constitutes the remains of the ancient castle of Pons.

Like many amphitheaters in the Roman Empire, that of Saintes was built on the outskirts of the city in a place now called "Vallon des Arènes" (Little Valley of the Amphitheater). The LTS builders took advantage of the local topography to build part of the amphitheater. Today, despite the disappearance of its superstructure, the remains give a very good idea of what this amphitheater looked like in its heyday. The site is now open to visitors all year round.

This building has three distinctive phases which illustrate the medieval transformations. From a first Romanesque construction there remains a section of wall with a small blocked bay and vestiges of the cornice with cornices on the first bay to the north of the nave as well as an arch and two bases of leaning columns on the facade. The beginning of the Gothic is visible to the north and east. On the north side, a very beautiful twin bay, with narrow lancets, still has semicircular arches inherited from the Roman Its foliage decoration evokes the beginning of the 18th century. The apse bay, in third point, already has tracery and testifies to a later phase. In the attic, traces of arches on the walls prove that the 13th century vaults were higher than those of today. In the 15th century, the building was taken over, retaining only these few sections of walls. The new construction, more homogeneous, appears as a rectangle supported, on each corner and on the long sides, by powerful buttresses. It is covered with ribbed vaults with prismatic ribs and emblazoned keys. The facade opens with a flamboyant Gothic portal, with an archivolt with hooks and fleurons, and its gable is crowned by a small quadrangular bell tower. Pointed arch bays, with flamboyant tracery. The north wall is representative of the three stages of construction of the building: the west bay is partly Romanesque, the east bay dates from the 13th century and the middle from the 15th century, while to the south the wall is consolidated by powerful buttresses. At the very end of the 15th century or the beginning of the 16th century, they wanted to open a side chapel on the first bay which was never continued, as the waiting stones show. On the reverse side of the facade, the bell tower required the construction of powerful massifs between which is placed a gallery covered with a long vault pierced by a large oculus. In Saintonge where Romanesque churches are the majority, this church is one of the rare examples of accomplished Gothic construction.

A former Benedictine abbey created in 1047, Abbaye-aux-Dames was the first women's monastery in Saintonge. These powerful women were nuns, that is to say, nuns living cloistered and having taken a vow of piety, occupying their lives in contemplation. They carried the crosier, in other words the pastoral staff of a bishop, and minted coins. Richly endowed, the abbey carried its influence well beyond the borders of the county and over time it became one of the most powerful women's monasteries in all of South-West France. With up to a hundred nuns at its peak, it was entrusted with the mission of instructing young girls, often from the French nobility, and counted among its most illustrious residents the future Marquise de Montespan, favorite of Louis XIV. The Abbaye-aux-Dames is structured around the Sainte-Marie church, built in the 12th century, famous for its facade and its characteristic “pine cone” bell tower. The premises were restored during the 1970s and 1980s and now house a Cité de la musique in which the Saintes Festival dedicated to classical music takes place each year. You can also stay in a wing of the building, the cells having been converted into hotel rooms, and leave your bike in a secure room.

With origins dating back to the Gallo-Roman era, the town of Saintes accumulates sites and monuments like so many layers of a centuries-old history. From the banks of the Charente to the height of the Capitol, there is so much to see along the streets of the city: the Germanicus arch, the thermal baths, the Saint Pierre cathedral, the Jacobins convent, the Musée de l'Echevinage , the Saint Eutrope Basilica, the footbridge over the Charente, etc. The heritage is omnipresent and offers many surprises and viewpoints.