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The romanic art at the head of its reputation, the region is a reference on the subject. It'll be necessary to go in Poitiers at first, to convince itself. There, it's enough to follow the threads of blue, red and yellow painting drawn on the ground, to join quietly the most prestigious monuments of the regional capital. Poitiers, which is also the capital of the department of Vienne, is unquestionably a fascinating city, in which it's better to be allowed guide to lose not at all.
Poitiers is a height-place of the romanic art, in the exceptional architectural patrimony. But the campaign of Vienne also shelters interesting historic cities, as Loudun whose old houses don't miss a stamp, Châtellerault and the "Manu", factory of disused weapons, with its gardens and its fireplaces.
The Vienne hides on top of magnificents villages and market towns. Angles-sur-Anglin
is "one of the most beautiful villages of France", whereas to Saint-Savin-sur-Gartempe, the abbatial set lines the river and the church of XIth et XIIth centuries, registered on the world patrimony of UNESCO shelter the most beautiful romanic murals paintings of France, inescapable stage of the roads of Saint-Jacques de Compostelle, crossing our region.
It's also Charroux and the tower Charlemagne, centre of one of the biggest abbeys Benedictines of the West, Nouaillé-Maupertuis provided also of one abbey, Lusignan, city of the fairy Mélusine and finally Chauvigny that one tells to be one of the most beautiful sites of Poitou,
barded by fortified castles and by bell towers built on a rocky fish bone, etc.
The romanic art didn't stop there. It came fell in Deux-Sèvres. Niort
indeed shelters the magnificent romanic donjon of XIIth century, become museum of regional archaeology and ethnography. Thouars, built on a rocky spur encircled by Thouet, is dominated by the castle of the dukes of the Trémoille, whereas Parthenay, medieval town and stage on Compostelle's road shines with its Parthenay-
le-Vieux's magnificent church and the Notre-Dame-de-La-Couldre's romanic door.
Bressuire shows the surrounding walls of its castle of XIth et XIIIth centuries and
Mauléon, the ancient capital of military Vendée , amazes by its construction in balcony with side of hillside. Melle and its three romanic churches is qualified as romanic town of the department.
On the left bank of Vienne, to some kilometres of Chatellerault, Scorbé-Clairvaux's village protected numerous architectural wealth relative to the seigneurial or popural life. The hall of grains was an important place of the rural life of this part of High Poitou. The originality of this batiment, built in the XVIIIth century, is to be in the middle of a vast fairground. Until the day before the First World War, markets took place, there Mondays and Fridays, and a big fair was held in it 15 of every month.
Source : Rustica n° 1661 of October 24, 2001
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