A star-shaped fortified town in the marshes of Charente-Maritime, once a busy salt port, whose sea has since retreated, leaving it stranded in the fields. Samuel de Champlain, founder of Quebec, was born here, and the young Louis XIV's love Marie Mancini was sent here to keep them apart.
Walk the ramparts and visit the craft workshops in the old houses. The marshes are rich in birds.
The 374-metre-long royal rope works of the naval arsenal founded by Louis XIV at Rochefort, on the Charente estuary.
Three medieval towers guarding the old harbour of La Rochelle: the Saint-Nicolas and Chain towers on either side of the entrance, between which a gre…
The castle where King François I was born in 1494, beside the Charente River in the centre of Cognac.
Cognac, a small town on the Charente River, is the home of the brandy of the same name, and the great cognac houses offer tours in several languages.
The 'Green Venice': a maze of canals shaded by poplars and ash trees in the marshes west of Niort, best explored by flat-bottomed boat or canoe.
The simple fisherman's house by the sea in the Vendée where Georges Clemenceau, French prime minister during the First World War, spent his last year…
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