The best traffic-free bike rides around Soizé

This ancient fortified castle dominates the Huisne Valley at 360° with its imposing keep. The building, with its troubled history, has undergone numerous modifications in its architecture and functions. A visit is essential to understand the complexity of its history and to observe the architectural evolutions.

The Church of Saint-Pierre, under the Ancien Régime, part of the deanery of Bellême, in the diocese of Sées, is located in the heart of the village of Saint-Pierre-la-Bruyère, in the Perche region. This building features a relatively high nave, surmounted by a slate bell tower, extending into a square-plan choir, much lower, flanked by a rectangular chapel to the south. The façade is supported by four powerful buttresses that appear to date from the late Middle Ages. It features a basket-handle lintel entrance door, dating from the late Gothic period. This door replaced a Romanesque doorway whose semicircular arch appears above the Gothic opening. It is surmounted by a pointed window. The northern drip wall is flanked, where it meets the western façade, by a brick staircase turret leading to the attic. The nave was built in the Romanesque period, as evidenced by the small round-arched windows in the upper part of the north drip wall. The bell tower is supported by four posts set within the nave's volume behind the façade wall. The three bays delimited by these posts are covered by a plastered wooden vault, lower than the nave vault, built in the 18th century. The triumphal arch is quite small. It is flanked by two finely crafted stone altarpieces. The choir is adorned with a large stone altarpiece with three sides delimited by four columns, surmounted by a richly decorated cornice crowned with fire pots. The high altar and side altars, in the same style, were built after the episcopal visit of 1706. They are a representative example of the quality of the renovations carried out in Percheron churches in the 17th and 18th centuries. A seigneurial chapel, built in the late 15th or early 16th centuries to the south of the choir, was converted into a sacristy between 1701 and 1706, to satisfy the observations made during the episcopal visitations. The arch opening onto the choir was walled up for this purpose. Aside from the altarpieces, the church contains few furnishings: an 18th-century stone Virgin Mary and a 16th-century baptismal font. The Sauvegarde de l'Art Français (French Art Protection Agency) granted €4,000 in grants in 2005 for the restoration of the roof.

The Saint-Hilaire church is of Romanesque origin and was built in the 11th century by the monks of Saint-Gratien de Tours. It was remodeled in the 16th century, and disfigured in the 19th.

A must-see that overlooks the valley.

We went by very quickly

Occupying mainly a hill dominated by a curious dome-shaped bell tower, the territory of Brunelles has a rich historical past, sometimes even bordering on the marvelous. If the very ancient occupation of the place is attested to in Bois-Jahan, the disappearance of the village of La Ferrière and its church of La Madeleine during the Hundred Years' War (14th-15th century), give the hamlet of Vieux Murs a legendary air... A fortified castle and a chapel below probably stood here. Furthermore, because the lords of Brunelles who were the vassals of the Rotrou, were required to guard the Saint-Jean castle, one of the towers of the Nogent castle still bears the name of the village today. Situated on a rocky peak, the Saint-Martin church is visible from afar. Built in the 15th century, most of it, including the spire, was unfortunately destroyed by fire, and only the stone choir with a semi-circular vault is original. The nave is lit on each side by three flamboyant-style windows, and in the choir you can admire the beautiful stone altarpiece that has recently been restored. You will also notice an oculus on the south face, found during the 1998 restoration campaign, and enriched with a recent stained glass window illustrating the Creation. Finally, visitors should not fail to stop by the relics of the young Alexander, tortured for refusing to renounce his faith in Christ, as were other saints called martyrs for this, from the Greek "witnesses". There are thus many relics in our churches: they can be found at the first origin of basilicas, often built on ancient funerary areas on the outskirts of ancient cities. The relics of the saints are to be considered as the very humble signs of what their bodies were, the evocation of their human condition: it is with their bodies that the saints acted, thought, prayed, worked, suffered and experienced death. The monastery of the Val d’Arcisses was the first foundation of the monk Bernard d’Abbeville, later called Bernard de Thiron, because the monks of St.-Denis de Nogent-le-Rotrou would not let him do it! Bernard had to settle nearby, in the parish of Gardais, under the protection of the bishop of Chartres, Saint Yves and de Rotrou, Count of Perche. He had been established in a manor located between Brunelles and Ozée. The Notre-Dame-du-Val-d’Arcisses abbey welcomed Benedictine nuns during the 17th and 18th centuries. Destroyed during the Revolution, all that remains is the gatehouse, a beautiful arch embedded in a façade. One of the monks' major works was to dig the Arcisses canal, a diversion from the Cloche: it irrigated the abbey's lands and supplied the fountain which flowed near the Notre-Dame church in Nogent-le-Rotrou.

The church has a Latin cross plan. It has a single nave and a flat chevet. A small building is attached to the chevet. A bell tower flanks the building. Buttresses support the drip walls and the gable wall. Pointed arch bays with tracery illuminate the building. The portal, in a low arch, has its external arched voussure.

Church built in the 12th and 16th centuries. Listed apse from the 12th century. 4-storey bell tower. Corner buttress bell with staircase turret. Renaissance portal. Large Gothic window above the portal. 16th century roof and nave. Stone statue of a bishop, 16th century paintings.