Poitou Charente

Poitou-Charentes covers an area of 9,965 square miles and is home to 1.7 million people.  It is the second most prominent region of France in terms of historic monuments and is renowned for its wealth of Romanesque art.

Perched on a promontory between two rivers, the city of Poitiers offers a rare number of buildings and a distinctive medieval section of town.  Its Notre-Dame-la-Grande church typifies the Poitou Romanesque style of the 12th century and the recent restoration of its facade highlights its magnificent sculptures and windows.

The Charente River meanders through a valley dotted with Romanesque villages and sun-bathed hills covered with the vineyards that will produce Cognac. 

In Angoulème, one can still walk around the fortifications that enclose the 12th century Saint-Pierre Cathedral.   On a more modern note, the city has been home to the National Comic Strip Museum since 1982. 

Apart from the pleasures of cognac tasting, a visit to the city where this beverage is made is a reward in itself.  Cognac is a charming town whose air is redolent of its famous namesake: it is said that the equivalent of 12 million bottles is lost every year to the evaporation from the casks!  If time is the cognac maker’s best friend, it seems also to have befriended the city, where people have adopted a slower and gentler pace.