The best walks and hikes around Luchat

Leckeres Land Restaurant and Hotel, good regional cuisine. Hikers welcome. The lunch menu is a real recommendation, but you should reserve - especially with groups.

Pirelonge Tower in Saint-Romain-de-Benet. The Pirelonge Tower is a Gallo-Roman stone tower. This monument, certainly built under the Roman Empire on the edge of the ancient road linking Saintes to Bordeaux, is a cenotaph in the form of a solid column, 24 m high, with a square section, crowned by a cone. (Wikipedia). Listed as a Historic Monument.

The interest aroused by this church is concentrated on its façade. It has on the ground floor a semicircular portal framed by two false doors of the same height, with pointed arches. On the large arcade of the vast central window which intersects the cornice develops the allegory of the Wise Virgins and the Foolish Virgins. Groups of columns separate the windows, others furnish the extremities of the facade. Above, a cornice decorated with scrolls and foliage rests on highly ornate corbels. Founded in the 2nd half of the 12th century, the current church was built in 2 stages: first the transept, surmounted by a bell tower, and then the choir. Then, towards the end of the 2nd ½ of the 12th century, the nave was barrel-vaulted and the western facade built. The primitive chevet was ½ circular. It was rebuilt in the 17th century, a flat Gothic wall, pierced by an ogival window, replacing the original apse. From the entrance, there is a massive wall pierced by a high and narrow door which, by 5 steps, reaches the nave. This narthex is lit by 2 semicircular windows. It is covered at great height with a starry ribbed vault. The nave comprises six bays, the first 3 vaulted in warhead with sculpted keys; the following 3, less high, in a broken cradle. In the 2nd half of the 15th century, following the Hundred Years War, a large part of the building was taken over. The left wall has been replaced by a series of 5 large smooth columns, without capitals Lit by 5 pointed arch windows, this 2nd nave also has its own entrance door to the west and on a landing preceded by several steps. Defensive elements were added to the south wall of the nave (walkway, crenellations, loopholes...), and a new bell tower was built above the 1st bay of the nave. This work was completed in the 17th century, for the completion of the vaults of the 1st spans of the nave, and for that of the bell tower, covered with a hull roof. Inside, the south wall of the nave is still pierced with semicircular bays framed by small columns with carved capitals. As for the western facade, it presents the usual structure of the Romanesque facades of the region. Made up of 3 arcades on each of the 2 levels, like a Roman triumphal arch.