The best traffic-free bike rides around Champagnolles

🏛️ Construction: 18-19 AD The arch was built around 18-19 AD, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius. It stood at the entrance to the Roman bridge crossing the Charente, at the outlet of the Via Agrippa, which connected Lyon to Saintes. It is therefore not truly a "triumphal arch": it was both a road monument and a monumental gate marking the entrance to Mediolanum Santonum, the capital of Roman Aquitaine. 👤 Who had it built? The arch was financed by Caius Julius Rufus, a Romanized notable from Saintonge. He dedicated it to Tiberius as well as his nephew Germanicus. The inscriptions engraved on the entablature still allow us today to know the figures to whom it was dedicated. The name "Arch of Germanicus" therefore comes from this dedication, and not from the fact that Germanicus personally had the arch built or crossed it. 🏗️ A rather exceptional monument The arch has two bays, likely allowing for the differentiation of traffic flows. It measures approximately 15 m high by 16 m wide. Its Corinthian and composite capitals bear witness to particularly meticulous Roman architecture. It constituted a true demonstration of the power and Romanization of Saintes. ⚠️ The moment the arch almost disappeared This is probably the most interesting episode in its history. For centuries, the arch was always located at the level of the Roman bridge and then the medieval bridge, on the right bank of the Charente. In the 19th century, the old bridge had become dilapidated. When it was decided to demolish it, around 1843, the arch was also threatened with destruction. It was then that Prosper Mérimée, Inspector General of Historical Monuments, intervened. He advocated for its preservation and arranged for its dismantling, relocation, and reassembly on the new bank. Another figure is also associated with this preservation: Victor Hugo, who stayed in Saintes in September 1843 and intervened in favor of the monument's conservation with Mérimée. 📍 Why is the arch no longer exactly in its ancient location? The arch we see today, on Place Bassompierre, is therefore no longer in its original location. It was moved a few dozen meters during the transformation of the quays and the disappearance of the old bridge. It was dismantled stone by stone and then reassembled in order to preserve it. It is now located in the immediate vicinity of the ancient Roman bridge crossing. 🏛️ Protection The Arch of Germanicus was finally classified as a historical monument in July 1905. An interesting detail The Crazannes quarries, located near Saintes, supplied a limestone widely used in the region's ancient constructions. Crazannes stone was notably used for monuments such as the Arch of Germanicus. In summary: 18-19 → construction of the arch at the entrance to the Roman bridge ↓ Antiquity → Middle Ages → the arch remains associated with the crossing of the Charente ↓ 1843 → demolition of the old bridge and threat to the arch ↓ 1843-1844 → Mérimée's intervention and relocation of the arch ↓ 1905 → classified as a Historical Monument

You absolutely must follow the guided tour by this passionate and fascinating volunteer guide, photos are not allowed inside the site but it is worth the detour and the effort to climb to the top of the cliff. It is possible to bring the bikes inside the fence, so they are safe.

There's room for a break with a drink and a snack. Or an ice cream. It sounds commercial, but it can be very useful information in high summer temperatures.

Magnificent port

Cute little coastal village at the mouth of a small canal, with a recreational port and a few restaurants as well as picnic spots for a break.

The choir, narrower than the nave, extends over two bays bounded by pointed arches supported by columns with smooth capitals. The apse, with its pure lines and semi-dome vault, has its perimeter adorned with five Romanesque arches with small columns. Double columns separate three arched windows similar to those in the choir. A few specifically Romanesque capitals, apart from those in the square, are noteworthy in this otherwise very interesting church: a head studded with birds, a child teasing a large monster's head, etc. The bell, dated 1583, has been listed in the Historical Furniture. At the end of the right transept, a large marble plaque details the numerous benevolent deeds of "a virtuous man who has been buried in the church since 1782" and who had forbidden in his will that his name be inscribed on his tomb. As the church also bears a coat of arms, that of Guy de Monconseil, who died at that time, it is not impossible to unravel the mystery of this anonymity. In 1877, a Marquis de Monconseil, among other charitable works, founded a large hospice in Tesson where the poor were received. Near the church, on the site of the old cemetery, stands a beautiful 15th-century hosanna cross.

The church of St. Gregory of Tesson dates, in its core, from the 12th and perhaps the 11th century, but what remains of the visible parts dates from the 13th century, with alterations in the 14th and 15th centuries. The current bell tower was built around 1880 in a Romanesque-Gothic style, where the abundance of pinnacles, awning windows, canted corners, and balustrades replace the absent archaeological interest. It rises on the side of the nave, in the west corner of the left transept. This building, dedicated to Saint Gregory, is built on a classical plan, with a single nave, a transept with apses, a choir, and a semicircular apse. The façade, in pure Saintonge style and with its beautiful lines, includes a vast semicircular portal flanked by two blind bays, a gallery on the first floor, and a gable. The gallery arches no longer exist; When the gable was built in the 18th century, they were removed. This façade, framed by tall, separate columns, is unfortunately obstructed, like too many churches today, by trees planted at the time of the suppression of cemeteries. These trees now obscure, here a façade, there an apse, elsewhere an interesting detail. Municipalities, aware of the honor of having such works of art on their land, should not only maintain them, but also clear them and strive to highlight them. The five arches of the portal, simply adorned with a string of diamond points, rest on columns raised on a bench. Above, unarced columns, single or double, surmounted by crocketed capitals, have very wide abacuses that form as many consoles. At each end of the solid gable wall, topped by a cross with an escutcheon, stands a statue. One did not escape mutilation. The nave has two vaulted bays with crossed ogival arches with three tori which, with the formerets, rest on two strong columns and two smaller ones topped with crocketed or foliate capitals. The smaller ones support lateral arches, each framing a semicircular window. At the top of the walls, curious little oculi of an unusual design also open—a rare detail in Saintonge; one is shaped like a crescent and fits within a circumference; another imitates a four-leaf clover. These openings were added at the time of the vaulting's restoration, that is, in the 14th century. In the square of the transept, four blocks of eight columns are connected by pointed arches. This square, now vaulted like the bays of the nave, was originally covered by a dome surmounted by the old bell tower, destroyed during the war against the English. Each side of this bell tower was adorned with two round-arched windows with stringcourses. The base of the first floor is still visible. The voluminous columns that border the square transept are remarkable. The columns of varying sizes all have capitals whose ornamentation of acanthus leaves or beaded garlands extends onto the flats of the pilasters in a frieze form. This very fine and meticulous decoration produces, despite numerous mutilations, a great artistic effect. The very deep transept gives the whole the shape of a Greek cross. The transepts, vaulted in a pointed barrel, are illuminated by round-arched windows. The apse of the one on the left features two curious small capitals that surmount the small columns of the entrance arch. Their large, well-crafted abacuses extend into a beautifully sculpted cordon around the entire half-circumference and extend into a miter, supporting the base of the semi-domed vault. This apse is externally adorned with four groups of two slender, twin columns forming light buttresses.

The church of Notre-Dame in Rioux was built in the second half of the 12th century (around 1160) on the foundations of an older and smaller sanctuary, of which some traces remain in the antechoir. The church of Saint-Eutrope in Saintes (consecrated in 1096) served as a model for the builders of Rioux. It underwent numerous and significant modifications over the following centuries, particularly in the 13th and 15th centuries. The nave, the western portal, and the apse date from the early and second half of the 12th century. The south side chapel and its portal date from the second half of the 12th century. The church originally had a bell tower above the fourth bay of the nave. Strong columns attached to pilasters attest to this original purpose. The north side chapels, former seigneurial chapels, and the north exterior door date from the late 15th and early 16th centuries. They were built by Baron de Rioux. The gable of the western façade was pierced with a round opening and topped by a square bell tower with faces adorned with twin trefoiled windows in the 15th century. The 1583 bell was replaced in 1867 by a 611 kg bell cast by Master Amédée Bollée. The nave has a lowered barrel vault in 1860. It has three bays separated by strong half-columns backed by slightly projecting pilasters. Their transoms receive the projections of large pointed arches, each framing a small, very narrow Romanesque window. The first bay houses a small gallery surmounting a porch and built between the two large masonry blocks supporting the bell tower. This bay has a ribbed vault with a large bell hole in the center. Two double chapels, to the left and right, form the transept. They connect to the nave and the choir through large pointed bays; ribbed vaults cover them. On the south arm of the transept, a second Romanesque doorway opens, on the west side, with arches decorated with stringcourses. The semicircular apse, separated from the choir by an arch resting on two columns with capitals, has a half-dome ceiling and is lit by five semicircular windows. Columns rising from the ground separate them. The upper part of the columns is broken in a zigzag pattern and they seem to buckle under a weight that overwhelms them. The columns are topped with capitals carved with acanthus leaves, on which lowered arches rest. Each corner of the windows is adorned with a small column. Two stringcourses decorated with small opposing triangles run around the apse. One runs at the height of the capitals' abacuses, the other highlights the base of the windows. In the nave and the south chapel, there are funerary urns from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries with coats of arms, bearing the arms of the Beaumont family and the Marquis de Monconseil, Lord of Rioux and Tesson. There once existed a crypt beneath the church. It was the object of special veneration, giving rise to an annual pilgrimage to Saint Venant (Abbot of Tours in the 5th century), venerated as a healer of the crippled. Miraculous cures were performed there. Following disturbances, this crypt was reportedly walled up around 1787. Legend has it that a considerable number of crutches were suspended from the ceiling. Excavations carried out in 1939 led to the discovery beneath the south chapel of an ossuary extensively remodeled in the 16th century, but there is no evidence that this ossuary was the pilgrimage crypt. The Notre-Dame de Rioux church has been listed as a historic monument since May 22, 1903.