Date of visit: May 11, 2013, around 3:00 p.m.
The third beautiful village on Sunday the 11th is Aubeterre-sur-Dronne, which is located in the Poitou-Charentes region, just like the first two beautiful villages along the Gironde River.
It’s about 2 hours away from Talmont-sur-Gironde.
It was difficult to find a place to park, but we managed to find a space near the entrance of the village. We parked our car there and started sightseeing.
After all, there were a lot of tourists in this village.
The symbol of the village is the church of Saint-Jacques. Let’s head this way.
On the way to the church, there was an observatory where you can see the whole village. Of course we took photos.
Now we arrive at the church.
Before we went inside, we found a delicious-looking cake shop in front of the church, and we had a quick lunch here because we hadn’t eaten lunch at all. But it was just a cake.
We had a delicious meal while sitting in this place.
Then we came to the entrance of the church.
This church was destroyed in the religious wars of the 16th century, but was rebuilt in the early 18th century.
The impressive design of the main entrance (façade) is in the Saintonge Romanesque style.
The inside of the church was very clean and well maintained. I thought it was a little too clean to feel the weight of history, although I felt sacred.
I’d rather have a church that feels old, though.
We then left the church and returned to the central square of the village again by a different route than before.
And finally, we visited the monolithic church which was built by cutting the cliff at the entrance of the village. It was built in the 7th century, so it has quite a long history. There was a fee here.
After cooling off in the cool cave, we drove to the next village.
公式サイト:Aubeterre-sur-Dronne