Attractions and Places To See around Semoussac - Top 20

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.

Nice track, be careful there is no protection against the wind or the sun ;)

A beautiful cycle path that runs along the river on the dikes. There are lovely views of the surrounding coastline.

The Abbey of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine goes down in history for having been founded by Geoffroi du Loroux, Archbishop of Bordeaux, around 1145-1150. The only vestige of the imposing Premonstratensian monastery, the church of the Abbey of Sainte-Marie-Madeleine, founded in the 12th century, is the jewel of the village of Pleine-Selve. 12th century church, made up at the time of a single nave, a transept and a flat apse. In the 13th century, addition of chapels to the arms of the transept. The convent buildings were completely destroyed by French troops in 1407 during the Hundred Years War and then during the Wars of Religion. The church itself had its nave amputated. Of the 13th century building, the crossing, the north arm of the transept, the north chapel, the flat apse remain. During the 19th century, construction of a sacristy on the south facade of the chevet. The Romanesque church is only the choir of the old church, only the apse presents the architecture of the 12th century. Today it has the status of a parish church. The building was classified as a historical monument in 1908.

The church, built in the shape of a Latin cross, the first construction elements of which date from the 11th and 12th centuries, with later additions and alterations (15th and 19th centuries to the beginning of the 13th century then modified in the 15th and 16th centuries, is dedicated to Saint Séverin, alias Seurin, bishop of Bordeaux in the 5th century, and whose feast day takes place on October 21. However, the solemn patronal feast is that of Saint Blaise, martyr bishop of the 4th century, fixed on February 3, and for which there is great veneration in the country. The main portal of the church, as well as the two false doors, are crowned by ogival arcades with a few rare ornaments borrowed from the Romanesque period, such as saw teeth, diamond points, etc. These gantries have been the subject of a subconstruction. The nave is made up of three recently vaulted bays in brick and plaster, without ribs; each span is separated by groups of four small columns, only two meters and fifty high, and appearing to date from the 14th century. The apse has two bays in the 15th century ogival style. The Saint-Joseph chapel, to the north, has kept its original Romanesque style; it is dominated by a semi-circular vault, and offers the example of an apsidion of which no advantage is currently being taken. It is adorned with a small apse which housed the baptismal font. The chapel of the Virgin, to the south, was remodeled in the 17th century; it has the character of a 15th century restorer; it was then lengthened, and consists of three spans. There is, it is said, an ossuary under the choir. The bell tower with a cone or "pine cone" spire, placed above the transept, and about 24 meters high (54 steps lead to its summit), is worthy of attention. This is the oldest part of the church. It is covered with a stone dome carved in tortoiseshell called the pine cone bell tower, similar examples of which can be found in Saintonge (Abbaye aux Dames de Saintes, Notre-Dame-de-l'Assomption church in Fenioux)3 but which recalls above all the domes of Byzantine inspiration observed in Poitou, Angoumois and Périgord (church of N.-D.-la-Grande in Poitiers, cathedral of Saint-Pierre in Angoulême, cathedral of Saint-Front in Périgueux). The foreground includes five Romanesque windows on each side, oriented as usual, on the upper level there are only two; the tower ends in a cut of stone, formed of small somewhat deformed cubes and forming a slightly rounded cone, but deformed by time. Inside, this bell tower offers a quadrangular vault, with cut sides, of very good taste. The bell, weighing 430 kilograms, was cast by Guillaume Besson, from Angers, and blessed in 1859, under the name of Marie. The godfather was Mr. Blanc Fontenille, former lawyer and notary, mayor of Nieul, and the godmother Mrs. Marie Belloteau, born Babin; parish priest M.Antoine Lanson.

The first mention of Port-Maubert appears in the 16th century. It is one of the ports with an intense wheat trade activity on the Gironde estuary. Trade is mainly with Bordeaux. The goods are loaded on barges which transported their cargoes according to the tides and the winds. In the middle of the 19th century, work changed the appearance of the port. At the same time, a landing stage was built to accommodate steamboat passengers. In the 1860s, the State ceded its land to build houses, warehouses for goods, a fairing slipway and establish a shipyard (the future "le Chérif" shipyard). At the entrance to the port, a steam flour mill processes and exports a large part of the cereal production of the Jonzac district. Port activity was at its peak: wines, wheat, potatoes, and other goods flowed in from all over Saintonge to be shipped to Bordeaux, Libourne, Pauillac. The fishing activity continues, the fishermen use boats equipped with nets the "filardières", some come out of the shipyard of Port Maubert, the "Chérif". Fishing has been mentioned in the estuary since the Middle Ages, a modest activity which grew with the modernization of the ports in the middle of the 19th century. The sturgeon, called here "Créac" or "Créa" is one of the fish caught for their flesh. According to tradition, a Russian princess would have come to St-Seurin-d'Uzet. She would then have undertaken to re-teach them how to prepare caviar and when she left, she would have forgotten her umbrella, now carefully kept in St-Seurin-d'Uzet. More specifically, the Prunier house, a great Parisian restaurateur, undertook in 1921 to organize the production of caviar in France and sent Alexandre Scott to St-Seurin-d'Uzet to teach the preparation of caviar to the fishermen of the region. From this activity by several production sites develop as in Port Maubert. The intensity of fishing, in addition to pollution and the modification of natural environments, leads to the scarcity of sturgeons. Its fishing declined in the 1960s and was finally banned in the 1980s, the sturgeon becoming a protected species. Since the 1990s, research has been carried out to reintroduce the original species of sturgeon, the sturio. At the same time, Baerii sturgeon farms are open along the estuary to provide caviar. In the 1980s, sturgeon fishing was banned and fishermen reoriented themselves towards pibales, hitherto practiced on foot or in skiffs with a landing net, and which now is done with boats equipped with "haveneaux": the "pibaliers", also used for shrimp fishing. Today the activity of Port Maubert is mainly linked to fishing and yachting, while a sailing school allows learning how to handle the Optimists on the hunting basin in complete safety. Local fishermen perpetuate the activity and offer the product of their work in the form of numerous recipes sold at the on-site shop.

"Agout" is an old Saintonge word meaning "sewer" which is here applied to the flow of water from the region to the marshes of the Gironde. The location of the church, on sloping ground on the edge of the road, may explain the addition of this word to its name, which gave St Georges d'Agout. 12th century church, enlarged in the 15th and 16th centuries. Dependent on the priory of St-Thomas-de-Conac in the 12th century, it retains a Romanesque structure and a western portal with arches and sculpted capitals. The right apse choir was covered with ribbed vaults in the 13th century. Existence of a solid square bell tower. New enlargement in the 19th century, with the construction of two chapels adjoining the collateral. Building built in the 12th century. At the end of the 15th-beginning of the 16th century, the western bays of the nave are doubled by a second vessel to the south, and a square bell tower is high. To face the Wars of Religion, an upper chamber was built; presence of an underground refuge. In the 19th century, the late collateral was divided by a longitudinal shear wall, and received a slight vault; the apse is pierced with a twin neo-Romanesque window. A sign at the entrance (and pictured in the must-see) explains the church's noteworthy features.

Both right along the sea as well as on both sides of the streams the elevated trail offers great views across the coastal scenery