The best cycling routes around Villars-En-Pons

beautiful passages along the Charente with pretty monuments and small waterfront cafés in Port d’Envaux and Saintes.

The Gallo-Roman amphitheater of Sainte, also called the Arena of Saintes, is an elliptical monument built between 40 and 50 AD, probably during the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius. It measures approximately 126 meters by 102 meters and could accommodate between 12,000 and 15,000 spectators, making it one of the largest and oldest amphitheaters in Gaul. Located in a natural valley called the "Arènes valley," it takes advantage of the topography to limit construction work, with stands backing onto the hill. The site has two monumental gates, the "Gate of the Living" to the east and the "Gate of the Dead" to the west, and has been the subject of a major restoration project since 2021 to preserve this exceptional heritage. Accessible on foot from the city center, it offers an immersion in Roman history with an educational trail and activities for families

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.

Parish church dedicated to Saint Lawrence, built in the 12th century. It opens with a semicircular doorway with three archivolts resting on sculpted capitals that have lost their columns. The doorway was narrowed by two jambs and an archivolt with prismatic moldings from the 15th or 16th century. The corners of the facade are each buttressed by a group of three large engaged columns, surmounted from the first entablature by five smaller columns bearing capitals decorated with vegetal motifs. Above the first entablature is a row of seven ogival openings, the columns of which have disappeared. A pediment with two ramps from the 17th century. Its facade is very interesting. A deep and vast portal with four arches occupies the entire ground floor. The archivolts are decorated with geometric motifs. On the first floor, a beautiful Romanesque arcading unfolds its seven arches supported by slender columns. A blunt gable pierced by a semicircular window and crossed by a cornice supported by modifications completes it. The square bell tower is placed along the north wall. It is adorned, between the first and second entablatures, on the west and north faces, with three arcading. Above the second entablature, it takes an octagonal shape supported by a sloped section. Amputated of its upper part, it has retained from the 12th century only its base, its square first floor with false semicircular windows, and its staircase tower is also square. The octagonal second floor, with its pointed roof, was rebuilt in the 17th century. The nave has three bays separated by strong half-engaged columns, but only the left wall survives from the original building. It is pierced by three undecorated Romanesque splayed windows; the semicircular vault is made of lightweight materials. A few Romanesque arches frame the false square, which, through a wide bay on the left, connects to the base of the bell tower. This space, covered by an octagonal dome on squinches, forms a porch. The apse with a straight wall, vaulted like the preceding bay and the nave, is lit by three modern bare windows. To the left, a slightly broken bay opens onto a rectangular chapel that follows the porch located under the bell tower. This chapel, also with a flat chevet, is lit by an axial window, unsculpted on the interior but beautifully decorated on the exterior. The church of Saint-Simon de Pellouaille suffered severe attacks during the Wars of Religion, attacks attested by traces of fire still visible at the base of the bell tower. In the 16th century, it lost its south wall, its apse, and the crown of its bell tower. In the nave, one can see a well-made painting and a curious stone font. Near the south wall, eight ancient burials were discovered at the beginning of the present century. The church was listed as a Historic Monument on September 19, 1923.

I really enjoyed this ride. I’m 46, I did it on a 40 year old road bike, it’s more suited to a cyclocross bike!

The Saint-Pierre Cathedral is located in the heart of the old town on the left bank of the Charente. According to tradition, the founding of this episcopal see goes back to Saint Eutrope. The construction of the first Christian building on the site of the current cathedral could not be dated with any precision. It probably dates back to the 6th century.