Charente is really beautiful if you know where to look for. There is history, architecture, factories, museums, little churches, castles, monuments, rivers, parcs and an abundance of nice meandering roads with very often extensive vineyards.
The cities and castles are on a separate page.

Sloping hills

The landscape of Charente is gorgeous. If you are in the heart of the cognac region you will see of course acres and acres of vineyards with white chalky rocks, lying on softly sloping hills. Around these vineyards country-roads meander from village to village. You have to be very carefull, there are no straight roads, so if you do not use your navigation it is easy to take a wrong turn somewhere. If you leave the very centre of the Grande champagne region behind, you ‘ll notice a little change in scenery. Many vineyards will have one or two solitary trees. Specially chestnut and walnut trees, who have a magnificent silhouette. The soil in between the vines are more of a red colour now.

Dolmen

History has left its Marks in the landscape. There are many dolmen to find. You could just stumble on them, but if you really want to find them, they easily elude you. Three very nice ones are:

• dolmen de la Pierre Levée de Saint-Fort, in Saint-Fort-sur-le-Né; best one.
• Dolmen de Garde-Épée in Saint-Brice; very nice
• Dolmen de Sèchebec; in the city of Cognac; easy to find, but not nicely situated.

Click here for a more extensive list of dolmen.

Porches

One of the beautiful features of the region are the long stone walls of the farms with a huge gate in it (called porche in French). These are always in classical Roman style. They are very high because they were built to let hay carts enter the court-yard. They are mostly kept closed, but whenever there is one standing open, do not forget to take a look inside.

Crosses

They are abundant and they bear witness to the Christian background of the people.

Churches

Churches – or églises in French – are also ubiquitus. Almost always in Roman style – again. Some very nice little churches are in Bouteville, Angeac-Charente, Baignes-Sainte-Radegonde, Barret, Ambleville, Blanzac-Pocheresse, Bourg-Charente, Brossac, Challignac, Dignac, Louzac-Saint-André, Rouillac, Échebrune, St-Léger, St-Sauvant. I can go on and on, they are just too many.