The best road cycling routes around Nieul-Lès-Saintes

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.

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.

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.

Built in the 11th and 12th centuries, this church, listed as a historic monument in 1912, is a spectacular work of art. Well worth the drive past when crossing town!

The Church of Saint-Martin de Coucoury was built around the 11th century. It is a pretty example of a Romanesque church.

This rather atypical-looking church is the result of several reconstruction campaigns, which spanned nearly eight centuries from the 12th to the beginning of the 20th century. The characteristic element lies mainly in its line of domes, built in 1901, and left visible. Built in cement, they give the building a false oriental air.

Saintes is a city that shines with its millennial heritage and its Gallo-Roman monuments. As unusual as they are well preserved, these nuggets will take you on a real journey through time.